


Bleed

by fnowae



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Despite the title, M/M, it is NOT about vampires, just read it suckers, not sure how to tag this..., ooooh boy, this is a mer AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fnowae/pseuds/fnowae
Summary: The day Patrick drowns is, excluding the obvious major event implied by that phrasing, a fairly normal day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> PSA the title won't make sense until the next chapter so y'all gotta wait a little 
> 
> Actually, most things won't be explained until next chapter. Oops. 
> 
> Anyways, this is probably the most planned out thing I've ever done. Whoa. So hopefully it gets written fast. 
> 
> Enjoy!!

The day Patrick drowns is, excluding the obvious major event implied by that phrasing, a fairly normal day. He gets up around nine like he always does, works his shift at the old cafe/bookstore on the waterfront like he always does, and spends most of the rest of the day hanging out with his friend Pete - wait for it - _like he always does_. 

If it isn't obvious at this point, Patrick's life is made of constructed and repetitive routine. And he's used to that, because it puts everything into easy to figure out black and white perspectives. Everything within his daily routine is normal and good and when he sticks to that, he can't go wrong. Anything that betrays his routine, anything that breaks it - all those things are inherently bad. And luckily, he has never broken his routine. Not once. He's lived in this tiny beach town all his life, and it's always been the same. And he's okay with that. 

The day he drowns is also the first day his routine has ever been broken - and after that, it's unlikely his life will ever return to security and routine ever again. 

It's probably important to explain exactly what happened on that day. 

Another part of Patrick's usual routine is taking his old boat out and watching the sunset out on the water. It's a great way to end his calm, structured days in the beach town, and besides, he just really likes the sunset. 

On the dock, as he's preparing to head out, he overhears two local fishermen discussing a storm they heard was coming. However, there's not a cloud in the sky, and those two are notorious for being a bit too interested in hard drinks, so Patrick isn't worried. He can always turn back if he sees clouds coming. He isn't going out too far anyway. 

He leaves the dock in his beaten-up motorboat that he's had for so many years it's a miracle it still works, noting by the position of the sun that he's just in time. Just like he is everyday. Perfect. 

He only goes out a little ways, just like every other time. He stops his boat and watches the sun drop below the horizon as the colors fill the sky and the gentle waves rock his boat in a rhythm that he's so used to he swears his heart beats to it. It's so tranquil, as it always is, and he swears to himself he'll never change his peaceful routine for anything. 

Except, that's not his choice to make. 

His boat tosses suddenly and violently in the water, and he's snapped out of his thoughts to a grim reality. It seems the fisherman were sober - or at least, sober enough. Clouds are quickly moving in, thunder rumbles in the distance, and the waves have shed their tranquility for an unprecedented violence. 

"Fuck," Patrick hisses under his breath. But no, no, it's fine; as long as he just goes back, he'll be okay. He still has time. He's not far out. 

His old boat, that he's had for over a decade, that's been with him through so much, and has never failed him chooses this one time to break. 

The motor won't start. He tries again. And again. Still nothing. 

" _Fuck_ ," he repeats, gritting his teeth and giving up. He supposes he'll still be okay. He can wait out the storm. The chances something actually happens to him are minimal. The storm might not even be that bad. And in the worst case scenario, he can just swim back to shore. 

Except, a minimal chance is still a chance. The storm is indeed that bad. And, despite all his years living in a coastal town, Patrick has never learned to swim. 

The wave slams his boat out of nowhere, flipping it like it's nothing. Before he can say "fuck" again, he's slammed into the cold water, and he's sinking fast. 

Patrick tries to swim. He does. But he just can't get it to work. And the water is so choppy in the storm that any even mildly successful attempt he makes is squandered by another unusual current slamming him further and further down. 

He curses his lack of foresight. What kind of idiot lives in a beach town for all his life and doesn't learn how to swim? Him. He's the idiot. 

Oxygen deprivation is kicking in - he knows this because his vision is going blurry and he feels lightheaded. He's dying, he realizes. But he's too out of it to really care. 

Maybe it's the oxygen deprivation, or maybe it's just wishful thinking, but he swears he sees someone out of the corner of his vision. Of course, that is logically impossible. He is underwater. He is drowning. No one is coming to save him. 

But then someone _is_ there, right in front of him. A face. It's close enough that even through his blurred vision that's gradually going dark at the edges, he can pick out the features. A nice face, really. Blue eyes, which Patrick takes his precious time to appreciate. Hair that's floating everywhere, which is a reminder that he's underwater and _no one else should be here_. 

This mysterious guy - a hallucination caused by lack of oxygen, Patrick decides - is looking at him, concerned. He takes Patrick's face in his hands, and hey, if Patrick dies while being held by an attractive hallucination, then he supposes that's a pretty nice way to go. 

Then this mystery-hallucination-guy gets a decisive look on his face, pulls Patrick closer, and _kisses him_. 

This is the final nail in the this-is-a-hallucination coffin. This is obviously not real. But, you know, Patrick is kind of okay with it. 

On that weird note, he closes his eyes, and lets death come. 

~*~

Death does not come. 

Patrick wakes up again with a headache and a nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach. But he is pretty sure he is alive. 

But then he opens his eyes, and he's met with a sight that makes him sure he's actually dead. 

First things first, he is _still underwater_. He's lying on his back on the sandy sea floor, surrounded by floating kelp that shimmers under the sunlight filtering through from the surface. And that is simply not possible, because he is breathing perfectly normally.

And second things second, when he turns to his left, he sees Hallucination Guy next to him, sitting with his hands folded in his lap, which can't really be counted as his lap, because _he has a fucking bright green fish tail instead of legs_. And that's not possible for, well, obvious reasons. 

"You're up," Hallucination Guy comments when he notices Patrick staring at him. 

"I'm dead," Patrick states in response. "I'm dead and this is some weird sort of purgatory because this is definitely not hell and I don't think I would end up in heaven." He pauses. "Or maybe this is hell after all...?"

"You're not dead," Hallucination Guy tells him, the corner of his mouth quirking up in an amused smile. 

"I'm underwater and having a conversation and you're some kind of fish person," Patrick deadpans. "I would not count on this being reality."

Hallucination Guy snorts, his amusement becoming even more evident. "Pot and kettle, man. Pot and kettle."

"What?" Patrick asks, frowning. It seems like that statement would mean one thing, but no - it can't mean what it seems like it means. 

"You're certainly not the most observant," Hallucination Guy (Patrick really needs to stop calling him that) says. 

" _What_?" Patrick repeats, both awaiting and dreading the answer. 

Hallucination Guy nods his head in the direction of Patrick's legs, except when Patrick sits up and looks, that statement is quickly invalidated, because _that is not legs_. 

"Oh, no. Oh, _fuck_ no," Patrick yells loudly, warily eyeing the shimmering blue-green tail that has stubbornly replaced the legs he knows he's supposed to have. He whips his head back to Hallucination Guy. "Who the fuck are you? What happened? _What did you do to me_?"

Hallucination Guy laughs, like Patrick's suffering is actually funny to him. "I'm Joe. You drowned. I saved your life."

"This is what you call _saving my life_?" Patrick asks angrily, pointing exaggeratedly at his fucking _tail_.

"Seeing as you're alive right now, and wouldn't be alive if I hadn't intervened, yes. Yes it is," Joe replies calmly. He's too calm, Patrick thinks. Does he do this a lot or something?

Patrick returns his gaze to his tail - he's never going to get used to that, so he sure hopes he won't have to - and bites his lip nervously, unsure what to say or do next. What the hell is he supposed to do? This still doesn't feel real, it doesn't feel _right_. And this is definitely going to fuck with his precious routine. 

Oh, shit, wait. 

"Fuck, what am I going to do?" He asks no one in particular, voice rising with each word. "I need to go, like, now, because I'm probably late for work, and I never miss work, and my boss is going to _kill me_."

(Well, that's a bit of an over exaggeration. But if it will make Joe more likely to think he needs to get out of here, then it'll do.)

This does seem to make Joe look a bit worried, so Patrick presses on.

"Seriously, I need to go to work! I can't be stuck like this forever!" He insists, unable to stop himself from getting more and more worked up. 

"You won't be," Joe tells him. 

"What?" Patrick asks, frowning. 

Joe sighs loudly, like Patrick should know this already. "You...how do I put this? Basically, you're now a mer-human hybrid. Congratulations."

"I'm a _what_?" Patrick hisses through clenched teeth. 

Joe looks a little bit guilty as he elaborates, "Well...exactly what it sounds like. You're sort of...half human, half merman."

"Nope," Patrick declares loudly. "Not doing this. I'm out."

"You can't just-" Joe starts, furrowing his brow. 

"You said I'm not stuck like this, so tell me how to fix it," Patrick demands bitterly. Too much is going on right now. He just wants out. 

Joe regards him carefully before slowly answering, "You just need to get out of the water."

Patrick raises an inquisitorial eyebrow. "That's it?"

"That's it," Joe confirms, then adds, "But, uh...don't leave yet."

"Why?" Patrick asks, exasperated. This is a mess and he's tired of it and hell, he's half convinced he's dreaming anyway. He just wants _out_. Is that too much to ask?

"Because you don't want to get out somewhere public unless you have a death wish or something," Joe answers, saying this like he's fearful it's possible Patrick actually does. Under the circumstances, Patrick doesn't quite blame him. Joe continues, "And besides, I don't even know your name."

"Oh," Patrick responds, feeling a bit bad for being so upset. "Uh...I'm Patrick."

"Cool," Joe grins. "Alright, Patrick, let's go." 

Before Patrick can say anything, Joe grabs him by the arm without warning and pulls him quickly through the water towards an unknown destination. 

"Whoa, hey, slow down, where are we going?" Patrick asks loudly, narrowly avoiding getting hit in the face by a large piece of kelp. 

"Somewhere you can get out safely," Joe replies, keeping up his speed and not getting the hint that he's going too fast.

"Slow down!" Patrick repeats, but to no avail, as Joe's speed doesn't change at all. 

Joe makes a frustrated noise and says, "Well, you could at least make an effort!"

"I can't swim!" Patrick answers, trying to get his arm out of Joe's iron grip. 

This finally stops Joe. He turns back to Patrick, confused. 

"You were out in the water, weren't you?" he asks. 

"Yeah! In a boat!" Patrick answers, at long last managing to yank his arm free. It's a bit sore after being pulled on so much. 

"You went out in a boat during a storm and you _don't know how to swim_?" Joe gapes at him. "You're a fucking idiot! I've rescued a fucking idiot!"

Patrick glares. "To be fair, I didn't know there was going to be a storm. The sky was clear."

This isn't exactly true. He'd sort of known. If only he'd trusted the damn drunk fishermen. 

"You. Are an _idiot_ ," Joe repeats, grinning ear-to-ear. "You are a fucking idiot, and I have to thank your idiocy, because this is the most fun I've had, like, _ever_."

"Stop ridiculing me and help me!" Patrick says insistently, throwing his arms out in annoyance. Joe, he has decided, is a fucking asshole. 

"It's not that hard," Joe says, the remnants of his smile still present on his face. "Just...use your tail."

Patrick pretends to consider this completely ridiculous suggestion, then says faux-thoughtfully, "Yeah, I would, but that goes against my current agenda of pretending none of this is happening, so...no thanks." He drops the thoughtfulness and adds drily, "Besides, that is the least helpful instruction ever."

Joe groans. "I'm seriously regretting helping you."

"You aren't helping me at all!" Patrick exclaims, holding back the million insults on the tip of his tongue. 

Joe mutters, "Just flick it. I'm serious when I say it shouldn't be that hard."

He looks genuinely hurt, and Patrick is starting to think he might be the real asshole here. Quietly, and against what he wants to do, he tries Joe's suggestion and attempts to quickly flick his tail. He's surprised when it really does work, and he gets a short burst of speed through the water. 

"Oh, huh," he says thoughtfully, turning to see Joe giving him what seems to be an encouraging smile, all hurt gone from his face. 

"There you go," Joe says, catching up with Patrick again. "Now, come on. We're almost there anyway."

Joe shoots off, and at first, Patrick struggles to keep up, but he finds that it keeps getting more and more natural to swim along after Joe. Which is a bit eerie in itself, because he doesn't want to think he's getting used to this. The idea makes him uncomfortable. 

Joe wasn't lying when he said they were almost to their destination. He stops fairly soon, in front of what looks to be a rocky cave opening, almost completely concealed behind a curtain of the kelp that Patrick has gotten so used to seeing. 

"Through here," he says, and leads Patrick past the kelp into a small tunnel, and from there into a larger underwater cavern. Light streams in from the surface. Patrick looks around, amazed at the sight. 

The walls are clustered with sea stars and anemones and the like, and what seem to be some kind of crystals form abundant outcroppings on the rocky walls. Everything practically glows in the shifting blue light. Patrick feels like this is some kind of alien planet, because he didn't know beauty like this existed on earth. 

"Nice, isn't it?" Joe asks, noting Patrick's look of amazement. 

"Do you live here?" Patrick asks, as he notices various objects strewn about the floor that make the cavern feel rather homely. Half a wrecked boat here, a long string of rusting jewelry there. All of it seems like a collector's paradise. 

"I don't really live anywhere," Joe answers with a little laugh. "But I spend most of my time here, yeah."

"All this stuff is yours?" Patrick asks, reaching out to touch what seems to be a partially-ruined painting, still in a gold frame. 

"Yeah," Joe replies, looking for all the world like a proud dad, which Patrick finds kind of funny. "And you haven't even seen all of it."

"Oh?" Patrick asks, raising an eyebrow. 

"C'mon!" Joe just looks excited now, most likely at the prospect of showing Patrick more of this collection he's so proud of. Patrick is starting to think he was a little too quick to say Joe was an asshole, because it's seeming that's not true at all. 

Joe quickly swims upward at a pace that Patrick still can't match. Patrick does his best to follow, though, and keeps going until they unexpectedly break the surface of the water. 

They're in a larger cavern, and Patrick realizes that the cavern they'd been in earlier had just been an underwater portion of this one. This one has a smooth floor and high, arching walls. Light pours in from a tunnel on the far wall that must lead outside. And adorning the walls is what must be the rest of Joe's collection. 

One wall is covered with intact drawings and sketches, as opposed to the waterlogged painting Patrick had seen earlier. One wall has assorted labels from food cans and the like, creating a sort of colorful tapestry. And another is covered with clothes of every type, size, and color, fabric blowing in a soft breeze that comes from the exit tunnel. 

"You just find all this stuff?" Patrick asks, unable to hide his astonishment. 

"Yep!" Joe replies, looking rather pleased that Patrick is so impressed. 

"It's amazing," Patrick breathes out. And it is. This whole place is like something out of a fantasy story. The light dances on the water and reflects onto the walls and ceiling, and the soft, pleasant breeze feels cool against Patrick's wet skin. 

"Well, this is where you can leave," Joe says suddenly, pride gone from his face and replaced with what might be disappointment. 

"Oh. Right," Patrick answers. He'd been so busy being amazed at what he was seeing he'd forgotten how only a little while ago he was so desperate to leave. Now...now he isn't so sure. 

"You don't want to be late for work, or whatever," Joe continues, bringing up Patrick's insistent argument from earlier that he'd honestly completely forgotten. 

"Yeah. I don't," Patrick agrees quietly, looking around and trying to take everything in as well as he can before he has to leave. "I just have to...get out?"

"Yeah," Joe answers. "Just get out and wait until you dry off."

"And then...this is all over?" Patrick asks, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice. 

Joe perks up. "No, not like that! I mean...if you'd prefer that, I suppose. But you would-" he looks like he thinks better of what he was about to say, and instead says, "What I mean is, you just need to get back in the water again. It's the salt water, I think. You could still come back here." He pauses, and quietly adds, "I hope you come back here."

"Oh. Okay. Alright," Patrick murmurs thoughtfully. Then another thought crosses his mind and he laughs. "Joe, I...I don't have any pants."

"What?" Joe looks confused, but then he breaks into laughter too. "Oh, you totally lost them when...yeah, I'm sorry! I'm sure I have something on my wall!"

Patrick laughs harder. His mind is still not fully functioning after all this mess, and suddenly he thinks this is the funniest thing ever. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks."

Taking a deep breath, he braces himself against the rocky floor of the cavern and pulls himself out of the water. He drags himself out right next to the wall of clothes, and manages to snag a pair of gym shorts that might be the wrong size, but are probably the best he can do. 

"Are you sure I can take these?" He asks Joe, recalling how proud Joe seemed to be of everything in the cavern. 

"Yeah, of course," Joe replies, smiling softly. 

Patrick revises his previous decision entirely. Joe is definitely not an asshole. At all. 

This is when Patrick is hit by a stabbing pain in his tail that he quickly chalks up to the fact he is, miraculously, about to change back. 

Joe shifts his gaze to the surface of the water, like he can't watch. But Patrick keeps his eyes trained on the tail, watching through the tears that prick his eyes as a result of the pain as, faster than he'd expected, it reverts to the legs he's supposed to have. 

Patrick quickly pulls on the borrowed shorts, which are just a little too big, but they stay on, so they'll be good enough.

"Huh," he says thoughtfully, slightly disturbed by the fact that he's currently a bit weirded out by his own legs. He reminds himself that these are what he's _supposed_ to have. 

"Are you leaving?" Joe asks, causing Patrick's head to snap up in surprise. 

"Oh. Yeah, I probably should," he answers with a little laugh. He pulls himself up into a standing position using a jutting piece of rock, and he's a bit surprised to find that at first, he's rather unsteady. This is the thing that suddenly forces him back into reality. The fact that, after barely any time spent under the water, his legs feel alien to him bothers him a lot. His entire attitude changes. Despite how calm he'd felt earlier, suddenly everything sinks in. He'd nearly drowned. And Joe, who he doesn't even actually _know_ , not really, had saved him by, what, making him some sort of weird inhuman hybrid creature? It's not nearly as cool or okay when he thinks of it like that. 

"I'm gonna go," he says darkly, glad when he finally feels like he can stand steadily again. 

"Oh. Okay." Joe seems to perceive Patrick's change in mood, judging by the way his face falls. 

"Bye," Patrick mumbles, turning and walking out without saying anything else. He needs to get out of here. He's done with this. 

"See you soon?" Joe calls after him questioningly, but Patrick doesn't respond. 

If he can help it, he's not going to see Joe - or even go anywhere near the ocean - anytime soon. Or ever again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I actually updated this??? I did! 
> 
> This is super exposition-y, and the title will finally make sense. Woo!
> 
> And the next chapter involves assault! WOO!
> 
> Okay, kidding. 
> 
> But enjoy!

"Excuse me, what time is it?"

The guy on the street Patrick is trying to talk to looks mildly horrified when he sees Patrick. He must look pretty bad; he's barefoot, wearing oversized gym shorts, and his hair is a salty, wind blown mess. But he sort of wants to tell this guy "hey, I could look a _lot_ weirder". 

"The time?" he repeats, because the guy seems to have become distracted, probably trying to decide if Patrick is homeless, a murderer, or just plain weird. 

The guy snaps his head to his watch and, without looking back up at Patrick, responds, "It's a quarter past three." Then he hurriedly walks away, presumably before Patrick can try to talk to him again. 

"Thanks a lot," Patrick mumbles under his breath, well aware the guy is out of earshot. 

Well, Patrick has missed work. His daily shift is ten to two, and it's obviously past that now. Feeling bad for disappearing unannounced, he decides to visit his workplace quickly to make sure his boss knows he isn't dead or anything. 

When he walks into the combination cafe-and-bookstore where he works, the place's owner/his boss is sitting behind the counter in the bookstore half of the shop, legs propped up on the wood and eyes stuck on a book in his lap. He looks up when Patrick enters, and a look of surprise and confusion crosses his face. "Patrick?"

"Hey Andy," Patrick says nervously, suddenly realizing how strange this must seem. He didn't show up for work for the first time ever, and now he's here late, looking like a complete mess. 

"Are you okay?" Andy asks, setting his book down and standing up. 

"I'm good," Patrick says, lying through his teeth. "Just wanted to make sure you knew I was alive, since I missed work."

"Uh...okay?" Andy responds slowly. 

"Sorry if I worried you," Patrick mumbles, embarrassed. He feels so bad (probably worse than he needs to, to be honest) for this. 

"No it's alright!" Andy gives him a reassuring smile. "I wasn't too worried. Thought you might've been sick." He gets a thoughtful look on his face and adds, "No, I think Pete's the one who's really worried. He came in here earlier looking for you because you weren't replying to his texts. I think he went to your house to see if you were there."

"Oh, shit!" Patrick exclaims, wondering how it possibly slipped his mind that if there's one person who would be concerned by his sudden disappearance, it's his overly-caring-bordering-on-clingy best friend. 

"You might want to tell him you're okay," Andy suggests, failing to hide the amusement on his face. 

"Yeah," Patrick agrees with a nervous laugh. "That's a good idea."

"See you tomorrow!" Andy calls as Patrick turns and runs out of the shop. 

"Yeah!" Patrick calls back as the door shuts behind him. 

He runs through the streets as fast as he can manage, trying to get home as quickly as possible. 

Pro of living in a little beach town: it's small, and it doesn't take much time to get anywhere. 

Con of living in a little beach town: in summer, the streets get unbearably hot and uncomfortable for bare feet. 

So while Patrick makes it to his house in just over five minutes, it's five minutes of pain and suffering as his feet sting every time they hit the hot, uneven asphalt. He cannot wait to put shoes on. 

When he reaches his house, he finds Pete sitting on one of the chairs on his front porch, looking worriedly at his phone. He looks up when Patrick comes near, a look of relief crossing his face. He leaps up, and before Patrick can stop him, he has Patrick in a ridiculously tight hug. 

"Oh my god, you're okay!" Pete exclaims loudly. "I was so scared! You didn't text me back last night or this morning so I went to meet you at work but you weren't there and Andy said you hadn't come in at all and you _never_ miss work! And I thought maybe you were home sick but I came here and you weren't here so then I went down to the dock because sometimes you're there but you weren't there and neither was your boat and that's when I got really worried because your boat is always there unless you're out with it and I thought something happened to you because I know there was a bad storm last night and you always go out at night and I thought you might have drowned or something so I came back here to wait and I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Whoa, whoa, okay," Patrick says with a laugh, peeling himself out of Pete's arms. "I'm fine. I'm sorry I worried you."

"Don't be sorry!" Pete reassures him. "I'm just glad you didn't drown or something."

Patrick laughs nervously, wincing. "Aha. Yeah."

Pete frowns, cocking his head to the side questioningly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Patrick tells him. He's scared, because if there's one person who won't fall for that, it's Pete. And he doesn't need Pete finding out the real reason he was gone. 

"You sure?" Pete asks. He finally seems to notice Patrick's appearance and adds, "Holy fuck, what happened to you?"

"Nothing," Patrick says, instinctively taking a step back from Pete. 

Pete looks doubtful, but nods, then asks him, "Well, what _did_ happen to your boat?"

Patrick freezes. This is one thing he really can't answer. He tries to think of some version of the truth that excludes the whole part where he'd drowned and gotten rescued by a fucking _merman_ , and ends up answering, "Uh, I lost it. Because of the storm. It broke."

"How'd you get back here, then?" Pete asks, brow furrowed in confusion. 

"I...swam?" Patrick responds, wincing as it comes out as a question. 

"I thought you didn't know how," Pete says suspiciously, giving Patrick a look that reveals he knows Patrick is lying. 

"I learned," Patrick answers, forcing away the thought of Joe's encouraging smile when Patrick had managed to swim that tries to worm its way into his head. He's done with that shit. He's done with Joe, he's done with the ocean, he's done with this whole mess. Besides, he thinks bitterly, he still doesn't actually know how to swim with legs. 

"Oh, okay," Pete says, in a voice that betrays that he doesn't believe a single word Patrick is saying. 

"Yeah," Patrick says, and nods in response to absolutely nothing. His hands are shaking a little, and he hopes Pete doesn't notice. It's his tell, an obvious sign he's lying, and even though Pete obviously already doesn't believe him, Patrick still doesn't want him to catch on. 

Patrick expects Pete to call him out on his bullshit, to demand the truth, but he doesn't. He just stands there. 

"You can go now," Patrick tells him quietly, unsure what else to say. 

"But..." Pete looks utterly betrayed. "But we always spend the afternoons together."

Patrick pushes back his guilt for the greater good and responds, "Sorry, I've had a wild day. I need a break. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Pete answers, looking defeated. "Bye, then."

He walks past Patrick and down the road, away from Patrick's house. He looks so sad that Patrick almost calls him back, but it's true that he needs a break. He'll make up for it tomorrow. Starting tomorrow, he's going to go back to his normal routine, his normal life. Whatever had happened today was just a blip in the pattern that he'll pretend never happened. Everything is going to be back to normal. He's sure of it. 

He walks into his house and swears when he stubs his toe on the loose floorboard in the living room. He really needs to get that fixed, but his whole house is falling apart anyway, so it's really not worth it. Maybe some other time. 

Wincing at the pain that persists in his toe, he goes to the bathroom to shower, because god knows he needs it. He actually pauses outside the shower, suddenly concerned that maybe he shouldn't be around _any_ water, but Joe had specifically mentioned salt water, so he decides to risk it. He stands under the hot stream tensely for a couple seconds before realizing nothing is going to happen, and he was stupid to be paranoid. He's forgetting about this, he reminds himself. As long as he never goes near the ocean again, he can pretend it never happened. It's that easy. Kind of. 

Actually, he still isn't completely sure that it had happened at all. With each passing minute, he becomes more and more convinced this was all some kind of strange dream. By the time he's out of the shower and eating dinner (leftover spaghetti and meatballs), he's sure of it. Of course that hadn't really happened. There is no friendly merman named Joe, he is still one hundred percent human, and everything is totally normal. Obviously. 

Of course, that doesn't account for the borrowed shorts he's still wearing, but he decides to pretend he doesn't notice that. 

He finishes his food and decides to go to bed early. He thinks a little extra sleep will do just the trick to put this whole mess behind him. 

He lays down in bed, and absently finds himself looking twice at his legs, like for a second he'd thought they wouldn't be there. But of course they are. They'll always be. 

Just a dream, he reminds himself. It was just a dream. 

~*~ 

Patrick shows up for work right on time the next day, ready for his life to get right back on track. He walks straight into the cafe immediately as the large clock tower in the town square strikes ten. He's dealing with a minor stress headache (can you blame him?), but otherwise he is completely ready to work. 

Andy is nowhere to be seen at first, but Patrick knows exactly where he is. He strolls through the bookstore portion of the shop and through a door in the back, into the back room. 

The back room of the bookstore looks like a whole other world. The walls are plastered with blurry photos with highlighter circles around what could be something of value, or could just be a tree in bad lighting. Stacks of books much less organized than the shelves of the actual store crowd every available surface, showing off strange titles like _The Professional Guide To Bigfoot Sightings_ and _How To Identify A Genuine UFO_. A whiteboard on the back wall contains a plethora of illegible notes in various marker colors. 

It's probably important to mention Andy is a bit of a conspiracy nut. Well, Patrick thinks he's a bit of a conspiracy nut. Andy has been trying to get him to use the term "cryptid enthusiast", but it's really not sticking. 

In the middle of the messy room, Andy sits behind a large mahogany desk, puzzling over a deep blue leather bound book Patrick can't make out the title of. 

"Hey!" Andy exclaims happily when he sees Patrick. "You're here!"

"Of course I am," Patrick answers just as cheerfully. "What do you need me to do today?"

"Just hold down the fort in the cafe," Andy answers, looking thankful. "Doubt we'll get many customers, so you can grab a book if you want something to do."

"Okay, got it." Patrick nods definitively, and exits the room to do his assigned task. He pauses in the doorway and pivots on his heels. "Oh, one more thing. I have a bit of a headache, do you have any Advil?"

"Yeah, sure!" Andy nods, and pulls open one of the desk drawers. He's retrieves a bottle of Advil and hands two to Patrick. "You can get yourself a glass of water if you need one. And if you think you're getting sick, don't be afraid to take a day off. You know you can."

"Thanks," Patrick says gratefully. "But it's just stress. I get this a lot." 

He leaves the room and heads over to the cafe half of the store to get a glass of water. He downs the Advil and puts the empty glass in the sink so he can wash it any other dishes he may have when his shift ends. As Andy had predicated, there's no sign of any customer activity, so Patrick takes his boss's suggestion and goes to the bookstore half to borrow a book. 

He ends up with George Orwell's _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ and pulls a chair behind the counter so he can sit and read it. 

He's lost in the book and barely notices when someone comes in. When he finally notices and looks up, it's Pete. 

"Oh, hey!" Patrick greets him, marking his place with a napkin and setting the book down. He then stands up. 

"Hey!" Pete says with a smile and a little wave. "I was half expecting you to not be here."

"When am I ever not?" Patrick jokes. 

Pete gives him a look. "Uh...yesterday?"

"Oh. Right," Patrick mutters, his gaze falling to the counter. He studies the aged wood so he doesn't have to meet Pete's eyes. Slowly, he looks up again, and asks, forcing cheerfulness back into his voice, "So, what can I get you?"

Pete snorts, weirdness forgotten. "You always ask, and I always order the same thing. Tall latte with extra vanilla syrup. And whip. Thank you."

"And every time I tell you that is barely even coffee," Patrick responds, rolling his eyes. 

"Shut up and make my drink." Pete laughs and shoves a five dollar bill at Patrick. 

Patrick takes the money and slides it into the register, and after giving Pete a half-hearted glare, he gets busy making the drink. 

Pete frowns as Patrick hands him his coffee. "Hey, are you alright? You look a little pale."

"Huh?" Patrick frowns. "Oh, I mean, I have a little bit of a headache. I might be getting a cold."

"Take some Advil," Pete suggests. 

"I did," Patrick answers, then frowns. That was over an hour ago, and it did nothing to help his headache. That's weird. 

"Oh. Then maybe you should go home?" Pete says. It's obvious he realizes how stupid a thing this is to say to Patrick right after he says it. 

"I'm not going home. I'm fine," Patrick insists, crossing his arms defensively. "I'm not going to bail on work two days in a row."

Pete looks doubtful, but mutters, "Your choice, I guess."

"Enjoy your coffee," Patrick says, unable to hide the sudden bitterness in his voice. Go home? Does Pete even know him? That's not happening. 

Looking a bit dejected, Pete leaves the store, waving as he walks out. Patrick doesn't wave back. 

Instead, he sits down with his book again and waits for his shift to end. 

~*~

When Patrick gets back to his house after work, Pete is already waiting on the porch again. 

"I figured we're back on our normal schedule?" he asks a bit nervously. 

"Yeah, of course," Patrick nods, giving him a warm smile. 

"Great!" Pete stands up, a huge grin on his face. "Then I assume we finally get that Jenga rematch?"

"I won fair and square, asshole," Patrick replies, but there's amusement in his voice. 

"Then see if you could do it again," Pete challenges. 

Patrick leads Pete inside, managing to avoid the loose floorboard this time. He finds Jenga and gets busy stacking the tower on the dining room table as Pete hangs up his jacket, which he is insistently wearing despite it being the middle of summer. 

Pete joins Patrick at the table, and, after declaring that he is going to win this one for sure, proceeds to whip a block out of the bottom and cause the entire tower to collapse. 

"I'm going to win the next one," he amends, staring at the wooden piece in his hand like it killed his family. 

Patrick laughs and rebuilds the tower as Pete rambles about how he's actually very good at Jenga, but Patrick is magically cheating somehow and he's going to get to the bottom of it. 

The next game actually starts out pretty well for both of them. Patrick still thinks he's going to win, but as he starts to remove a tediously placed piece, he breaks into an unexpected coughing fit and the tower tumbles down. 

"You okay?" Pete asks, concerned. "Are you sure you aren't sick? You might need to lay down."

"I'm good," Patrick assures him, but in reality, his throat is sore, he thinks he might cough some more, it's possible he's running a fever, and his head still hurts like hell. When did this get so bad? He never gets colds. Why now?

"Really? Because you don't look very good," Pete says, raising an eyebrow. "I think you're coming down with something."

"No, that can't be right." Patrick shakes his head insistently. "I never get colds, and besides, if I had a cold, don't you think Advil would've helped? I mean, if this is a cold, I have no idea how to-" 

He pauses mid sentence.

Because suddenly, he knows _exactly_ how to fix it. 

"Oh, fuck me," he hisses under his breath, slamming a fist against the table. 

"What?" Pete asks, puzzled. 

"I gotta go," Patrick mumbles apologetically, standing up. 

"What?" Pete repeats, but Patrick is already gone from the room. 

He dashes into his bedroom, grabbing a couple things and stuffing them into a bag. He slings the bag over his shoulder and runs back through the living room, slipping on a pair of flip flops before he gets out the door. He doesn't want to run around barefoot again. 

"Sorry!" he calls to Pete over his shoulder, running out the door and leaving his friend staring after him, dumbfounded. 

He dashes down the street from his house, flip flops slapping the ground loudly with each step. He knows exactly where he's going. He doesn't want to, but he has to and he knows it. 

When he'd run from the cavern yesterday, he'd emerged from an opening near the base of two sand dunes just a little ways out of town, a place he'd recognized really well. In fact, the only reason he hadn't previously known the cave existed was that the entrance was heavily covered by vegetation. Now, he recognizes it easily. He slides into the entrance and practically falls down the tunnel into the cavern. He lands ungracefully on the ground, and the contents of his bag spill out; the shorts he'd borrowed before (he's returning them), and an extra pair of pants. If he must do this again, he's at least going to be prepared this time. 

Patrick stands up, discarding his bag and kicking off his shoes. He stares at the shimmering surface of the water with contempt. He really doesn't want to do this. But his headache is still pounding, and he still feels horribly sick. And he knows why. Somehow, he knows. 

And also, he knows this is the only way to fix it. 

"I fucking hate this," he proclaims to anyone who may be listening, then, with a running start, throws himself into the water. 

He sinks down into the underwater cavern quickly. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut at first, trying to pretend he's anywhere but here. Then he feels a pain in his legs, and he doesn't need to look to know he doesn't have those anymore. 

He hates that he feels better already. He hates that his headache and his sore throat and everything that had been bothering him has vanished the second he changed. He _hates_ it. 

"Patrick?"

Patrick's eyes fly open and he spins around to see Joe staring at him, eyes just as wide as Patrick's. He looks like he didn't expect to see Patrick again. Patrick is hit by a wave of guilt. 

"Hi," he says weakly. He considers trying to give Joe a friendly smile, but he can't bring himself to even try. 

"You came back." Joe's face screams disbelief. Patrick would almost rather be sick again than see that face for a second longer. 

"I had to," he responds, looking down to the ground in shame, which is a mistake, because he catches a glimpse of his stubbornly existent tail. He focuses of a portion of wall behind Joe instead, where some kind of flag is attached to a rock outcropping, waving is the gentle current of the water. 

He expects Joe to be confused by this statement, but instead, Joe's face contorts into a look of sadness and...guilt? "I was afraid of something like that."

"You knew this would happen?" Patrick asks, unable to stop himself from looking surprised. 

"I wouldn't say I _knew_..." Yeah, that's definitely guilt. "I thought it was possible, because, like...I didn't think you'd be able to just choose to stay away from the water like that. I don't think you could choose to stay away from the land either, if you wanted to. You're kind of in between. But I didn't know for _sure_..."

"Joe..." Patrick frowns. He's missing something here. 

"But that doesn't matter!" Joe exclaims faux-cheerfully, forcing a grin on his face. "I found a really cool gem earlier today, I wanted to show you if you came back, because I thought you might-"

"Joe-" Patrick starts. There's something Joe's not telling him. He's sure of it now. 

"It's really cool looking, and it's sort of every color at once, I think I've heard a name for it before, but I don't remember-" Joe is busying himself searching the wall for something, his back to Patrick. He's moving back and forth animatedly, ignoring Patrick's attempts to get his attention. 

" _Joe_!" 

Joe spins around at the sound of Patrick's yell. Too quickly. He scrapes his elbow against a jutting piece of rock on the wall and makes a face. "Ow."

Patrick moves closer, concern overtaking his annoyance. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Joe flashes him a nervous smile and yanks a small strip of seaweed off the wall, and starts wrapping it around his elbow like a bandage. Patrick's first thought is that that's incredibly resourceful, but then his eyes catch on the little bit of blood leaking from the scrape, and his second thought is-

"Wait, is your blood _blue_?" he blurts out in surprise. He briefly considers it might be a trick of the light, but it doesn't seem like it. 

"Uh." Joe looks to him nervously. "Yes?"

"Huh." Patrick frowns as Joe finishes wrapping his injury. Then he asks thoughtfully, "Is _my_ blood blue?"

Joe freezes and goes pale. Patrick gets the distinct impression he wasn't supposed to ask that. 

Joe bites his lip, letting his arms fall back to his sides, and slowly answers, "No..."

Patrick frowns. "Why not?"

"That's not important-" Joe starts. 

"If it wasn't important, you'd tell me." Patrick crosses his arms. He knows he's getting closer to whatever Joe doesn't want him to know. And since he's been dragged into this against his will, he thinks he deserves to know. 

"Patrick, I don't think it's a good idea to-" Joe begins, and falls quiet when he sees what Patrick's doing. 

What Patrick is doing is reaching past Joe, and, as gently as he can, pricking the tip of his finger on a piece of sharp rock. 

The blood that comes out is silver. 

Patrick is gaping at his finger, captivated by the unmistakable silver tone of his blood, and almost doesn't notice that Joe starts freaking out. 

"Don't do that!" he yells, panicking as he grabs another piece of seaweed and wraps Patrick's finger like he'd wrapped his elbow. He waves his arm at the tiny cloud of sliver blood floating in the water, like he's trying to disperse it. "You can't just go bleeding everywhere and think no one's going to fucking notice!" Then he freezes, like he's realized he's said too much. 

"You owe me an explanation," Patrick says under his breath, pulling his bandaged finger out of Joe's hand. 

"I," Joe starts, eyes wide. Patrick has trapped him, and he knows it. 

" _What am I?_ " Patrick asks through clenched teeth. "And don't say you've told me, because I don't think you really have."

Joe sighs, defeated. He waves his arm to an old rotting bench pushed into one corner of the cavern. "Let's sit down."

They move to the bench like Joe had suggested, but that's the extent of Patrick's patience. As soon as they're on the bench, he demands, "Tell me everything, or I will never fucking come back here again. I don't care if it _kills me_."

Joe looks down at the ground rather than at Patrick as he starts, "It's a long story."

"I have time." Patrick fixes Joe with his best glare. Joe sighs again. 

"Alright," he begins quietly. "It starts with the merpeople's creation myth." He pauses here to take a breath, and then continues. "It says that the earth came into existence on its own, but with it, it brought two gods. One for the land, one for the sea. And the god of the land, like most gods in creation myths, wanted to create creatures in their own image. And, so...that's how humans happened." He laughs almost bitterly here. "But the sea god got jealous, because they couldn't figure out how to do what the god of the land had done, and besides, some of the humans were starting to think 'hey, our life kind of sucks up here'. So they compromised, and the land god gave some people who truly wanted to leave to the sea."

"Merpeople," Patrick guesses. 

"Yeah," Joe nods. 

"And...neither of those are me," Patrick continues. 

Joe nods minimally this time, looking almost ashamed. "Yeah."

"Go on," Patrick presses, and Joe does. 

"But still, that didn't fix everything," he says. "Some of the humans who left to the sea had left behind people who wanted to stay with them, but who didn't always want to stay off of the land. The gods pitied the merpeople who missed the people they had known as humans, and...compromised." Joe pauses here. Patrick thinks he knows where this is going. "The sea god gave all merpeople the ability to allow the people they cared about who couldn't stay in the sea to move between land and sea at least _sort of_ at will. They did this-"

"By kissing them?" Patrick asks. He feels a little sick, but not like he had earlier. This sickness is more nerves than withdrawal from the water. 

"Yeah." Joe is obviously trying to look anywhere but at Patrick, and it isn't working very well. "And that...that worked out pretty well for a while, I guess. Everyone was happy where they were, and everything was fixed. Which is how it should've stayed."

"Something happened," Patrick guesses. The sick feeling worsens. 

"More like someone happened." Joe makes a face. "There was this guy - he was a real asshole. No one knows his name, but we all know him. He declared that the half-mer half-human people were ruining the 'purity' of all merpeople, and for some reason, most everyone agreed with him. And..." Joe chokes a little here, like he's scared to finish. "...they were all killed."

"Fuck," Patrick breathes out. His head is spinning as he tries to put everything together. He wonders if maybe he was better off not knowing after all. 

"Most everyone _still_ thinks that," Joe continues quietly, like he doesn't want Patrick to hear. Patrick understands why. "There are literally groups tasked specifically with finding any who might be left, though they're more self-run gangs now than official groups. Even though none have existed for years."

"Until now." Patrick squeezes his eyes shut, like it'll all go away if he keeps them closed long enough. 

"Until now," Joe agrees softly. 

"That's why...that's why you didn't want me bleeding?" Patrick asks weakly. 

Joe nods. He looks as sick as Patrick feels right now. "If anyone saw that...fuck, Patrick, I don't want anything to happen to you."

Patrick stares at his bandaged finger. He thinks about the silver blood the thin piece of kelp is stopping. It makes him nauseous. 

"You asked what you are." Joe is talking again, his voice hushed. "You're a silverblood. You shouldn't exist. And..." he sounds like he's choking. "I'm sorry."

Suddenly, Joe is crying. Full on crying. He's sobbing, which is a bit weird to see underwater, but Patrick doesn't pay attention to that. He just pulls Joe into his arms. 

"Hey. Joe, hey," he says quietly as Joe cries into his shoulder. "It's fine! It's gonna be fine! No one's going to know!"

"No it's not!" Joe chokes out. "You can't hide this forever! I can't believe I did this to you! I should have known better, I-"

"Joe, really!" Patrick cuts him off, holding him tighter. "It's going to be okay. I'd rather have this than have drowned that day."

When he says this, he really means it. Joe seems to catch onto this, and his sobs quiet down. 

"It's okay," Patrick repeats.

Joe tentatively pulls himself out of Patrick's embrace. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Patrick nods decisively.

Joe suddenly breaks into an unstoppable grin. "Then I have to show you my cool gem!"

Patrick laughs. "Sure."

As Joe pulls him back across the cavern, doubts start to resurface in Patrick's mind. Is he really okay with this? This seems kind of - okay, _really_ fucked up. 

But then Joe holds a small opal out to him expectantly with the proudest grin on his face, and Patrick pushes the thoughts away again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished another chapter? WILD. 
> 
> It's gonna get bad after this one. One thing after another. Hoooo boy. 
> 
> uhhh TW for violence on this one again...if you don't like knives n shit don't read it 
> 
> this is getting so long and I'm only three chapters in oh god 
> 
> enjoy !

Over the next few days, Patrick settles into a new kind of routine. He still gets up and goes into work every morning, but he only spends half of the rest of the day with Pete, and then leaves to hang out with Joe (most of this time is spent either talking about nonsense or looking at more cool rocks). It works out, because since he's going into the water regularly, he doesn't get sick again. He's also beginning to think that his tolerance for being away from the water might be getting stronger. He doesn't know how he feels about that. On one hand, it makes things easier, but on the other, he still doesn't want to think he's getting used to this. But either way, for the most part, it works. 

The one flaw in this plan is that Pete starts to get suspicious as to where Patrick leaves to every day. It's strange enough that Patrick has changed his precious routine, and Patrick knows Pete is sure something's up. But he has no idea what, and that's how Patrick likes to keep it. Pete is his closest friend, but even so, Patrick is scared to find out how he would react. So he doesn't tell him. 

Pete starts showing up to Patrick's work more often to compensate; he often orders more than one coffee as an excuse to hang around and talk to Patrick all day. Patrick feels guilty for shutting him out like this, but he needs to be able to go to Joe's cavern every day. He has some ideas as to what would happen if he stayed out of the water too long, and he doesn't like any of them. 

He manages to keep his secret from everyone, too. He's had one close call with Andy that involved getting a paper cut when Andy was a little too close, reorganizing the fiction section while Patrick was busy shelving new books across the aisle. But he'd managed to sneak away and get a bandaid before Andy could catch sight of the silver blood dripping slowly from the small cut. 

This grace period, this stretch of calm, lasts a fair amount of time. Two weeks; just long enough for Patrick to start to think he could possibly really be getting used to this, and to maybe be okay with that, but also long enough for him to be lulled into a false sense of security. 

Everything changes the day he and Joe get into an argument. 

It was stupid. It was a horrible, pointless argument, and it ruined everything. 

Joe had been proudly showing Patrick his collection of knives - one of the more dangerous parts of Joe's hoarding habit - and Patrick had accidentally cut his hand on one; a knife Joe had bragged he had crafted himself out of pretty pink coral. Of course, Joe freaks out when silver blood starts leaking into the water. 

"Joe, it's _fine_ ," Patrick mutters, taking a piece of the abundant seaweed to bandage his cut. He's figured out how after watching Joe bandage the many cuts he procures while trying to show Patrick things in his cavern. Joe is...rather clumsy sometimes, and probably shouldn't be allowed to collect sharp objects. 

"Hurry up!" Joe insists, swimming over and trying to help, which just slows the process down. 

"It doesn't matter. It's just a little blood." Patrick rolls his eyes as he finishes bandaging the cut.

Joe looks like Patrick has just suggested the earth is flat. "Patrick, it's not just a _little_ blood. Any amount is too much. They're going to find you!"

"I was fine after I pricked my finger," Patrick comments, turning to face Joe and crossing his arms. "Whoever 'they' are, they can't find me based off a tiny bit of blood."

"The finger was a legitimately small amount!" Joe is edging the thin line between annoyed and angry, and Patrick knows he shouldn't press on. 

He does anyway. 

"Blood drifting off into the water is not going to lead these mystery villains to me," he says, raising an eyebrow, challenging Joe to disagree. 

Joe fully crosses the line to angry now. "You don't know what you're talking about! That's exactly what it's going to do!"

"Sure it is," Patrick says sarcastically, knowing full well he shouldn't be pressing on like this 

"Yes! Yes it is!" Joe practically screams. His face is red. He's furious. So is Patrick. 

"You're being ridiculous," he responds hotly. "I'm going to be fine!"

"You are not!" Joe yells back. He's shaking now. Patrick should really stop before he says something he regrets. 

"Stop being so weirdly overprotective of me! I can handle myself! This is your fault anyway!"

Too late. 

Joe pales, all the anger drained from him. He starts, "Patrick, I-"

"Save it." Patrick moves past Joe, preparing to get out. "I'm leaving."

"Patrick, I don't-" Joe tries again. 

Patrick turns one last time, fully ready to pull himself out of the water, and regrettably, he lets his anger get the best of him. He says one last thing he'll never forgive himself for. 

"Maybe you should've just let me drown."

He doesn't look back. If he sees Joe's face, which is sure to be devastated, it will ruin him. 

He pulls himself out, and sits there waiting for his legs to come back so he can leave. He's afraid if he takes too long, Joe will come out of the water and try to talk to him. Actually, no. He wants that to happen. He should apologize. He needs to apologize. As he pulls on the pants he'd left here before he'd gotten into the water, he watches the surface for Joe.

He never comes up. 

Patrick walks home defeated that day. The guilt doesn't fully reach him until he steps into his house and stubs his toe on the loose floorboard, which he was too lost in thought to remember to avoid. He curses under his breath, and then suddenly starts crying. 

He can't believe what he said to Joe. He feels like such an asshole. Joe was probably right, too. Of course Joe knows more about this than he does. He should have listened. 

It's too late to take it back now. 

He falls asleep staring at the wall, trying to think of any way he can make up for what he's said. 

He moves through the next day slowly, wishing the day would just end already. He can't get his mind off of what he said. Andy notices how out of it he is at work, and asks if he'd like to take the day off. He doesn't, of course, but he tells Andy he appreciates the offer. When he and Pete hang out later, Pete suggests Jenga, seeming to think it will cheer Patrick up, but Patrick can't concentrate, and loses every round. 

Time passes too slowly and too quickly at the same time, and suddenly Pete is asking him, "Don't you need to go meet your friend?"

Patrick had made up some story for Pete about how he goes to hang out with this new friend he made every night - Pete actually seems to believe it. It's close enough to the truth, anyway. 

"Yeah," Patrick replies, and he does go out, waving goodbye to Pete as Pete sets off home the other way. But he doesn't go to see Joe. 

He knows he should. He knows, actually, he sort of needs to. But he figures he can handle spending one day without going into the water. And besides, he needs a break. He can't face Joe right now. The guilt is too fresh. 

He goes for a walk along the "hiking trail" along the beach, which is really just a glorified two mile dirt path. He used to walk this path sometimes when he needed to clear his head. He supposes it should still work as well as ever. 

And it does, for a little; he walks along until he hits an abandoned dock, and decides to walk out onto it. 

The dock is one of the supposedly "touristy" ones designed for people to just stand on, not actually use as a dock. It's wishful thinking on the part of the town; as if they actually ever get tourists. It's not even in good shape. It has two broken benches and a decaying, but somehow still standing, railing. 

Patrick stands on the edge and leans on the railing, looking out to the water as he watches the sun set. It reminds him of the night on the boat, and suddenly he can't look at it. He stares down at the water instead. A jellyfish is floating in the current by the dock. That's actually rather calming to watch, and he loses track of time watching it in the ebb and flow of the waves. 

Patrick comes back into focus only to realize it's dark, and the dock is suddenly lit by moonlight instead of the light of the fading sun. It's a full moon; the light is bright and beautiful. 

He's about to turn to leave when an unfamiliar voice speaks up. 

"Going somewhere?"

Patrick freezes and slowly turns towards the voice. The person the voice belongs to is as unfamiliar as the voice itself; a guy who appears to be in his mid-twenties with bright red dyed hair spilling out from under the hood of a gray hoodie, which is pulled on over ripped black jeans. When the guy shifts his weight, his huge black boots make the weak dock creak under him. 

Patrick's heart skips a beat. Joe's words echo in his head. _They're going to find you!_ But no - that's impossible. This guy is obviously just a weird stranger. He can't be after Patrick because of - because of _that_. Besides, the guy's standing there on two legs. He's human, isn't he? If he was a silverblood, he certainly wouldn't be hunting down Patrick for being one too. 

"Do I know you?" Patrick asks, ignoring his fears. Maybe this guy is someone he met once and forgot about. He's had weird run-ins with old friends like this before, where he didn't remember them at first. Is that it?

"No." The guy - Patrick decides to call him Red, for his hair - is grinning eerily. It makes Patrick's stomach twist. 

"Well then, I really need to get home," Patrick says, fear edging into his voice despite how hard he tries to hide it. 

"I'm afraid you won't be going home right now." 

Patrick spins to the left to see another mystery guy approaching. This guy has a curly mess of highlighter yellow hair that's styled in an almost-mullet and too many piercings. He's holding a knife. Now that Patrick looks, Red has a knife too. This can't be good. 

The new arrival - Patrick is going to call him Yellow - is grinning just like Red. He says slowly, "You'll be coming with us now."

"I don't think so," Patrick says, but his voice is shaking, and there's nowhere for him to run. He could jump off the dock into the water. His eyes flick to the water behind him, considering escape. 

Red notices and chuckles. "I'm afraid the ocean isn't a viable escape route for you, either. Do you really think we would just leave that unguarded?"

"What do you want from me?" Patrick asks shakily, as if he doesn't already know. "I think you might have the wrong guy."

"Oh?" Suddenly, Yellow has Patrick held forcefully in his arms. Patrick hadn't even noticed him move around and grab him. He tries to struggle, but Yellow is too strong for him to break away. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes," Patrick answers through clenched teeth. He's lying. He's obviously lying. He is so, so scared. 

"Well then-" Red starts, stepping forward, but he's cut off by a loud yell. 

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?" 

Patrick whips his head to the new voice, and his heart drops when he sees who it belongs to. 

"Pete..." he says weakly. "What are you doing here?"

"I walk this path every night!" Pete exclaims, looking wildly between Patrick and his captors. "What the fuck is going on here?"

"Pete, get-" Before Patrick can say "away", Yellow and Red have shared a look, and Red has Pete restrained like Yellow has Patrick. 

"I see we have some leverage." Red's knife is against Pete's throat in a flash. Patrick nearly chokes. 

"Let him go," he pleads. 

"If you cooperate, we won't hurt him," Yellow says with a grin. His own knife is suddenly pressed against Patrick's arm. "Now, what were you saying about us having the wrong guy?"

Patrick's heart is nearly beating out of his chest. Fuck. They can't do that here. Not in front of Pete. Not now. 

"Don't!" he yells shakily. "Fine, you got me! I'm who you're looking for! But please, don't do that right now!"

This was the wrong thing to say. Yellow smirks. "Your friend doesn't know, does he?"

"Doesn't know what?" Pete asks, eyes shifting wildly between Patrick and Yellow. 

"Don't you fucking-" Patrick begins, but it's cut off by his yelp of pain as Yellow digs the knife into the skin of his arm. 

Silver seeps out of the resulting cut, and dribbles down his arm, dripping softly onto the dock, where it pools and shimmers in the moonlight. 

"What the fuck?" Pete yells, staring at Patrick's bleeding wound with wide eyes. Patrick is helpless to do anything but stare back as the blood drips down his arm, with the threat of Red's knife on Pete's neck ever-present. 

"I never thought I'd see this in my lifetime," Yellow says with an evil-sounding snicker. "You _disgust_ me. Almost as much as whatever idiot did this."

Patrick chokes on his breath. _Joe_. He hopes that, if anything, they haven't got Joe. If the last words he ever says to Joe end up being - _no_. He won't even consider that. 

Patrick starts struggling again. He almost manages to get out, too, but Yellow's grip tightens again. 

"Careful," Red threatens, pressing his knife a little harder into Pete's neck, but thankfully still not breaking the skin. "I still have your friend."

"Patrick, what's going on?" Pete asks shakily, still staring at Patrick. He looks afraid. Patrick feels sick. 

"Maybe we need to make it a little harder for you to run, hm?" Yellow suggests, pulling something from his pocket. At first Patrick can't tell what it is, but then he realizes - it's a paper cup. 

Patrick laughs bitterly. "You utter fucking asshole."

Still keeping his tight grip on Patrick, Yellow bends down and dips the cup over the dock's edge, filling it with the churning water below. He straightens up again and holds the cup threateningly at Patrick. "Only fitting you'll get to die as what you were never supposed to be, huh?"

"Fuck you," Patrick hisses out. His heart is going a hundred miles an hour. He wants to fight back, to get away, but he can't risk Pete getting hurt. And Yellow's words reveal a new reason to be afraid - they're going to kill him. He'd suspected, of course, but now that he knows for sure...he shudders. This isn't how he wants to die. 

Pete is trying to look away, like he doesn't want to watch any longer. Patrick doesn't blame him. But Red forces his gaze back to Patrick. "I think you'll want to see this, kid."

Patrick grits his teeth, ready to brace himself, but he never gets to. Without warning, Yellow upends the contents of his paper cup onto Patrick's head. 

Patrick closes his eyes. He can't bring himself to see Pete's reaction. This wasn't how Pete was supposed to find out. Actually, Pete wasn't even supposed to find out in the first place. But it's too late for that now. 

The brief pain tells him it's happened. He keeps his eyes shut as he hears Pete scream, "What the _hell_?"

Yellow chuckles directly into Patrick's ear. "Time to turn you over to our friends in the sea, huh? It was fun making a show in front of your friend, though. I'm sure I'll never get tired of remembering that."

Patrick tries again, weakly, to escape, but it's even harder without legs. He can't kick at his captor, and he can't even try to get traction on the wood of the dock. 

He's about to resign, to accept his death at the hands of these horrible people, but suddenly there's what sounds like a loud splash and a yell of, " _Get your dirty hands off my Patrick_!"

Patrick is surprised when he falls to the dock, and looks up to see that Joe has somehow gotten up on the dock, and is currently busy fighting Yellow off with the pink coral knife he'd shown Patrick just yesterday. 

Patrick looks fearfully to Pete and Red, worrying that Red may have tried something, but it seems his fear is unfounded. Pete has somehow managed to escape and get his hands on Red's knife (presumably Red had been distracted by Joe's sudden arrival), and is currently busy waving it threateningly and saying, "I've never stabbed anyone before, but I won't hesitate!"

Yellow breaks from Joe's assault, gives Red a look, and the two of them bolt. On the way to who-knows-where, Yellow turns and flips Patrick off with a yell of, "We'll kill you next time!"

"Wow. Nice guys," Patrick says with a raised eyebrow, watching them go from his position laying uncomfortably on the dock. 

"You're okay!" Suddenly, Joe has Patrick wrapped in his arms, and he's grinning into Patrick's neck. His soaking hair is dripping water down Patrick's back. 

"You saved me!" Patrick responds in disbelief. 

Joe squeezes him tighter. "I was passing by and saw the guards by the dock and I figured out what was happening. I fought them off and managed to get up here and I'm so glad you're okay!"

Patrick grins. "I'm fine! I'm okay! Thank you!"

Joe leans back, beaming, stares into Patrick's eyes for a moment, and then leans in again and kisses him. 

Patrick doesn't stop him. He smiles into the kiss, overjoyed. Joe saved him! Despite how rude he'd been before, Joe still saved him! He can't imagine why, but he did. 

"Listen, I don't mean to interrupt your weird fish lovefest, but what the fuck is going on here?"

Patrick breaks the kiss and whips his head back to Pete, startled. He'd kind of forgotten Pete was there. That's when he realizes he's sitting here with a tail and all but making out with a merman who had thrown himself out of the water to save him from strangers with knives only a minute earlier. This...probably looks bad. 

"Oh," is all Patrick can say, going red. 

"What the fuck?" Pete repeats. "Who were those guys? Who's your fish boyfriend? Why are you bleeding silver? _Why do you have a fucking tail_?"

Joe seems to realize it's a good idea to back away from Patrick now and does so, leaning himself against the dock's railing, and leaving Patrick lying helplessly on the dock, trying to figure out how to answer Pete's questions. 

That's when he realizes he'll quickly dry off, and to prevent this situation from getting any more awkward than it already is, he turns towards Pete and asks, "Can I borrow your jacket?"

"What?" Pete frowns. 

"I'll answer your questions, I promise, but please, can I have your jacket?" Patrick repeats. 

Pete hesitates, but then peels off his jacket and hands it to Patrick. Patrick quickly busies himself tying it around his waist, and just in time too, because just then the familiar pain starts in his tail, and, within a few seconds, he's back to having legs. 

Pete makes a noise that's something between confusion and surprise and spits out, " _You have legs again?_ " like legs are the most ridiculous thing he's ever seen in his life. 

"Yes." Patrick pulls himself up using the dock railing, cursing his weak legs. He still hasn't gotten used to how unstable he always is right after turning back. He tightens Pete's jacket around his waist.

Pete just keeps staring at him, then says weakly, "I have so many questions."

Patrick bites his lip and stares down at the dock, rather than see the look on Pete's face. "Then ask away."

"Okay, first of all, who's he?" Pete asks, jabbing a finger towards Joe, who is still stuck leaning against the dock's railing. 

Patrick sighs. "Pete, this is Joe. Joe, this is Pete. Great. Now you know each other."

Joe waves at Pete. Pete is still staring, but makes a weak wave back. 

"Uh...okay..." Pete continues, looking just as lost as he had before. He locks eyes with Patrick and asks, one word at a time, "Why did you have a tail?"

Patrick laughs nervously, trying to look away from Pete's intense stare, but unable to make himself do it. "That's...a long story."

"You said you'd answer my questions," Pete says, and if there's one thing Pete can never fail to be, no matter how confused he is, it's pissed off, so Patrick decides it's in his own best interest to answer. 

"Right. Well." He sighs. "I don't know how to say this."

But he doesn't have to say it, because that's when Joe unhelpfully pipes up from behind him. 

"He's a silverblood," he says, as if Pete is going to know exactly what that is. 

Pete, of course, has no idea what that is, and responds, "I noticed the blood, thanks, _what does that mean_?"

Joe opens his mouth again, and Patrick shushes him. "Let me explain this, alright?"

Joe just shrugs. "If you want to."

Patrick turns back to Pete, whose face is a mask of curiosity and confusion. He sighs and begins, "I'm kind of like...well, I'm _not_ a merman, actually, but I'm...not exactly human either."

He doesn't know how to continue, but luckily Pete gets the idea anyway and says, "You're...both."

"Kinda, yeah," Patrick replies, rubbing his arm anxiously. Pete doesn't seem to hate him for this yet, but he's still nervous that will change. 

Pete doesn't say anything rude and he doesn't seem to feel at all negatively about this ridiculous news, but what he does ask is, "Why?"

Patrick bites his lip. If there's one thing he knows about Pete, it's that Pete will decide to immediately hate anyone he thinks has wronged Patrick in the slightest. And while he has the best intentions, he tends to take the tiniest things as "wronging Patrick". Patrick doesn't doubt the possibility that Pete will decide what Joe had done falls into that category, life-saving or not. He can't bring himself to explain, but Joe doesn't give him a choice. 

"Long story short, he was drowning," he says quietly. His eyes are shifting between Pete and Patrick, like he's trying to judge both their reactions, though Patrick doesn't think his reaction to something he already knows matters. "I...this is all I could do. I didn't want to let him die."

His voice is pained, and Patrick's mind drifts back to their argument. He immediately feels bad. How could he have gotten mad at Joe for saving his life? All he'd wanted was to help. Patrick is just an idiot. 

Pete seems to process this for a moment, and Patrick is ready for him to ask for explanation as to what Joe had even done, like Patrick himself had, but instead, Pete just slowly says, "You...saved his life."

"Yeah," Joe responds quietly.

Pete considers this for a moment, then nods, confusion slipping off his face as if this makes everything better. He gives Joe a curt nod and says, "Thanks."

Joe looks surprised, like he hadn't expected that - he probably hadn't - and nods back. "You're welcome, I guess?" 

Pete nods again, with finality, but doesn't say anything. 

"I want to go home," Patrick mutters. He can stand without his legs shaking again, and he's tired and shaken and still needs to clean the cut on his arm. The blood has stopped dripping, but most of it has dried and congealed down his arm, a couple shades darker but still maintaining its metallic quality. 

Joe and Pete both seem surprised, as if despite talking about him, they'd forgotten he was there, and Pete says, "Yeah, yeah, sure."

"Patrick, can I talk to you?" Joe asks, then gives Pete a look and adds, "Alone?"

"Go ahead," Pete says to Patrick, and Patrick nods to Joe nervously. The look on Joe's face has turned a bit colder, and he's worried this is going to be about their argument. Had he really thought Joe had just forgotten about it and they were going to live happily ever after or something now? (That's hardly possible even then, considering the whole guys-trying-to-kill-him thing.)

Pete turns and heads off a little down the path, no doubt staying nearby to walk Patrick home when he's done. Patrick appreciates it. He doesn't exactly feel very safe right now. 

Patrick takes the couple steps over to Joe, and Joe gives him a nervous smile and says, "Pick me up, would you? This dock is really uncomfortable."

"Oh. Uh. Sure." Patrick nods weakly and leans down, scooping Joe up into his arms. He positions Joe in his grasp so that they aren't too close, because the further away Joe is when he hears the inevitable bad news he's sure is coming, the better. 

"Thanks," Joe says, his thankful smile getting wider for just a moment, but then falling again. "Patrick...about yesterday..."

Patrick's heart skips a beat. Here it is. Before Joe can continue, he stammers out, "I'm sorry, fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean any of it, I was upset and you were right, obviously, and-"

"Patrick." Joe laughs, actually _laughs_ , face screwing up into a grin. "I was going to say I wanted to forget about it."

"Huh?" Patrick asks, taken aback. He'd expected to be let down, for Joe to say he never wanted to see Patrick again, or something like that, at least. Had Joe even heard how much of an asshole Patrick had been? Was he paying attention?

"I know you were upset. I was too. It got out of hand on both sides." Joe shifts his position in Patrick's arms, peskily moving his face closer to Patrick's. "I don't want to stay upset over it, and more importantly, I don't want you to stay upset over it."

Patrick is speechless. He just stands there, holding Joe tighter without realizing it. Joe sees that Patrick isn't going to say anything, and for some reason he takes it as a cue to lean in and kiss him again. (Not that Patrick's complaining, but really, not every little thing is a cue to lean in and kiss him.)

" _Get a room_!" someone yells in the distance, and it occurs to Patrick that Pete had hung around close enough to still see them, just not close enough to hear. 

Joe chuckles. "I like your friend."

"Pete? Nah, he's an ass," Patrick responds jokingly, shifting Joe's weight in his arms so he can flip Pete off from a distance without dropping the merman in his arms. 

"I think he's nice," Joe says, smiling softly. "You're lucky to have a friend who cares about you like that."

"Uh...sure." Patrick shrugs. "I guess."

"I should go," Joe says, sounding regretful. 

"Oh. Sure." Patrick nods. "Go ahead."

Joe rolls his eyes. "Well, I can't exactly get off the dock myself."

"Oh, right." Patrick laughs. "Alright."

He turns to the side of the dock, and he's ready to hoist Joe over the edge when Joe says, "Uh...one last thing."

"Yes?" Patrick asks, raising an eyebrow. 

"I think..." Joe's expression changes from overjoyed to pained. "I think it might be best if you don't come visit me as much."

"What?" Patrick blinks. The mood keeps switching from positive to negative and back and he can't keep track of it anymore. 

"It's just, if they can get you on land, I would be surprised if they can't in the ocean, and it might be a good idea to be careful," Joe explains, looking more and more like he regrets it with each word, but Patrick is only hearing the words he's saying, not the tone in which he's saying them. 

"But I _need_ to," Patrick says, and fuck, doesn't Joe know he does? Joe knows more about this than Patrick ever will, of course he knows Patrick can't just stay away like that. 

"I don't mean don't come!" Joe insists, though it's sounding more and more to Patrick like he really does. "Just...don't stay as long. Come only when you need to. I just think-"

"Yeah. Got it," Patrick mutters shortly. He doesn't, not really, but all he's hearing is that Joe wants him to stay away. 

"Patrick-" Joe starts, worry dripping menacingly from the one word alone. Patrick doesn't want to hear what the rest would sound like; that much fear and worry in Joe's voice already makes him feel a little sick. 

"You need to go, right?" Patrick asks bitterly. "You should go."

"Right," Joe mumbles, looking out to the ocean rather than at Patrick.

Patrick moves a little closer to the railing, but doesn't quite drop Joe over yet. He hesitates just a moment, and in that moment Joe presses one last kiss to his lips, whispers, "I love you", and rolls himself out of Patrick's arms into the water. 

"What?" Patrick squeaks out, but Joe is already gone. 

Jesus, Patrick thinks, as if he hadn't gotten enough mixed messages today already. 

Patrick leans as far as he can over the railing without falling in, to see if Joe is going to come back up, maybe say something else, anything else at all, but Joe doesn't appear. All that's left are the ripples from where he'd fallen into the water below. 

Patrick steps back slowly, shaken. He doesn't know what to make of tonight. His head is rushing with it all - the guys trying to kill him - the guilt of his argument with Joe - I love you - Pete found out - Joe telling him to stay away and then suddenly right after - _I love you_ \- it's too much, _too much_. 

Patrick whirls around, ready to meet Pete and walk home, to leave tonight behind, but his vision falls on something lying on the dock, next to the drying puddle of his blood that's still staining the wood. He bends down. It's Joe's coral knife, glistening with blood from when he'd attacked Yellow. Only...only, this can't be right. 

Patrick had assumed Red and Yellow had to be human. But the blood lining the edge of the knife...it isn't red, or, for that matter, blue, or silver. 

It's black.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic but every time Patrick is a fucking idiot it gets faster

It takes all the self-control Patrick has to keep his discovery to himself until work the next day, to which he shows up with the knife, still covered in dried black blood, wrapped up in a white cloth. 

When he gets there, he bursts into Andy's back office with no warning, no call of "I'm here", no nothing. He's a man on a mission - if there's one person who's going to know what the black blood means, it's Andy. (He knows he could always ask Joe, but he's convinced himself that Joe is not an option at the moment.) 

"What do you know about merpeople?" he asks the second he's through the door, fabric-wrapped knife gripped tight in his hand. 

Andy looks up from the book he's reading, a huge one bound in deep green leather with decorative golden markings, and casually says, "Patrick, if you're going to make fun of me for being interested in this stuff again, I'd rather you go try and fix the coffee machine. It's been making those weird noises again since you left yesterday, and you're always good at-"

"I'm serious, Andy," Patrick says through clenched teeth, and Andy seems to pick up pretty fast that this isn't a joke. 

He slowly closes his large book - the title reads _The Amateur's Guide To Vampire Identification_ \- and asks, "Why do you suddenly actually care about this kind of stuff?"

"Doesn't matter," Patrick answers, because he doesn't really care about telling Andy, seeing as Andy could care less about this kind of shit (and seeing how he dedicates most of his life to it), but he wants to hold off on it as long as possible. "What do you know about merpeople?"

"You're going to have to be more specific," Andy says, standing up from his chair. "That's a really broad category."

Patrick sighs and drops the knife on Andy's desk, letting the cloth fall back so the blood-stained coral blade is visible. 

Andy frowns at the knife, taking it in without an ounce of surprise, only with vague interest - one of the reasons Patrick had known Andy would be a good person to ask for help - but instead of offering anything of any assistance, he just says thoughtfully, "How'd you manage to get Joe's favorite knife?"

" _What_?" Patrick's mouth drops open. He has so many questions already, but now a new one is being piled on top - _how does Andy know Joe?_

Andy gives him an unreadable look. "This is Joe's knife. I'm going to assume you know Joe, seeing as you're bringing his stuff to me and asking me what I know about merpeople."

"How do you know Joe?" Patrick asks, gaping. 

"I saved him from an asshole fisherman, and in return he helped me with my studies on merpeople," Andy answers, shrugging. "How do _you_ know him?"

"Uh," Patrick starts, wondering if he can come up with a story that doesn't involve telling Andy the truth right now. "Well, it's just-"

"Wait," Andy interrupts, eyes falling on Patrick's arm. Patrick follows Andy's gaze, only to realize exactly what he's staring at. 

"Oh," Patrick mumbles. The wound he'd acquired last night is still blatantly visible, even though he'd cleaned most of the blood off. The dried silver blood that remains is unmistakable. If Andy already knows Joe, Patrick has no doubt he knows what it means. 

And he does. "You're a silverblood," he comments, showing surprise for the first time in the conversation. 

"Yeah." Patrick laughs nervously. 

Andy looks thoughtful, then asks, "That's how you met Joe, isn't it?"

"Um...yes," Patrick replies, nodding weakly. 

"He's an idiot," Andy mutters, but there's a fondness to it. "Alright, now that that's out of the way...why are you asking me about this?"

Patrick gestures vaguely at the knife. "I was, uh...I was wondering about that blood. I...I don't know what it means. I didn't know black blood was a thing." Of course, a couple weeks ago he hadn't known anything other than red blood was a thing, but that's not the point here. 

Andy nods, looking back down to the knife. "Oh yeah, it is. And I'm...kind of worried you're getting near anyone with it."

Patrick bites back a comment along the lines of "they were the ones getting near me" - he doesn't need to get Andy more worried than he obviously already is - and just asks, "What does it mean?"

Andy looks back up to Patrick, meeting his eyes. "Well...it's not good."

Patrick quirks an eyebrow as if to say "go on", and Andy sighs. "Black blood means Exiled."

Patrick can practically hear the capital E in his voice, and he preemptively shudders at the explanation he hasn't even gotten yet. "And that means?"

Andy looks a bit afraid, which sort of scares Patrick in turn. He doesn't think he's ever actually seen Andy look afraid before. "That means someone who _was_ a merperson, but was, well...exiled for committing unspeakable crimes. Mostly it's stuff like mass murder. Merpeople have a bit of a weird government system, by which I mean they don't have one, but they have an elected council that handles the decisions when it comes to prosecutions like that. And they're extremely lenient - you have to have done something really terrible for them to actually rule against you."

"Oh, god," Patrick breathes out, eyes falling back to the knife. Now that he knows what the black blood means, he's pretty Red and Yellow _are_ serial killers. That's just fucking wonderful. He feels so much better now. 

"What I want to know is what you were doing fucking with some Exiled," Andy says, giving Patrick a piercing look. "I don't want you getting hurt." His eyes fall to Patrick's arm. "Obviously, I'm a bit too late to stop that."

Patrick sighs, suddenly guilty, though he doesn't have all that much reason to be. It wasn't like Red and Yellow going after him was his fault - not really. "You seem to know more about this than I do. You probably already have some idea what happened."

"Sure I do," Andy agrees. "You probably got jumped by a couple Exiled working for that mess of an anti-silverblood gang. I'm actually surprised, because I know they've got human operatives too, so I'm not sure why they'd want to jump to immediately sending their best guys after you, but then again, they were probably just trigger-happy, seeing as this is most likely the first real action they've gotten in years. Judging by the fact you have Joe's knife, which is covered in their blood, you had a bit of difficulty and he saved your ass."

Patrick blinks. "That is...yeah, that's exactly what happened." 

Andy offers a small smile. "I thought so."

Patrick's eyes shift around Andy's back room, taking it in with new eyes now that he knows Andy isn't just a disillusioned conspiracy nut. Andy obviously knows a lot about a lot of things. Patrick makes a mental note to remember that if he ever needs help again. 

"How is he?"

"Huh?" Patrick is pulled from his thoughts by Andy's voice. 

"Joe. How is he?" Andy asks again, raising an eyebrow. "Haven't gone to see him in a long time."

"Oh." Patrick bites his lip, trying to avoid mentioning that he and Joe aren't exactly on good terms right now. Well, more accurately, Patrick isn't on good terms with Joe. Joe probably isn't upset with him at all - but Patrick can't forget how it felt like Joe was trying to push him away last night. He settles for, "He's okay."

"Good. I should go see him again sometime." Andy looks thoughtful again, and Patrick decides now is a good time to cut this conversation off. 

"I'm gonna go check out the coffee machine," he says, recalling Andy's instruction earlier on. 

"Oh, good!" Andy grins thankfully. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

Patrick nods shortly and turns to leave. Before he's out the door, he hears Andy's voice again. 

"And Patrick?"

"Yeah?" Patrick asks without turning around. 

"Stay out of trouble."

Patrick frowns and walks the rest of the way out of the room. 

~*~

Patrick has to say that Pete is a genuinely awesome friend, because he doesn't mention any of last night at all when he shows up at Patrick's house that afternoon. He shows up, stubs his toe on the loose floorboard, and after over-dramatically whining about how much it hurts, declares a Jenga tournament again. It's just like any other time Pete has come over to Patrick's house, and Patrick is thankful that at least one part of his life is a constant. 

Well, at least, Pete doesn't bring it up until it comes to be the time Patrick would usually leave to hang out with Joe, and Pete says, "Isn't it time for you to go visit your - _oh_ , you've been going to see _him_!"

"I think I'm going to stay and play some more Jenga today, thanks," Patrick says, trying to sound like he's making this decision casually and not out of possibly unfounded spite.

"Oh." Pete looks surprised. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Patrick gives him a well-faked smile. "I am."

Pete looks confused, but doesn't press it, and thankfully, doesn't bring up Joe again, either. He just says, "Well then, are you gonna play or what?"

Pete stays the whole afternoon, and that night they order pizza, which is something they haven't done since Patrick started going to see Joe, because they've never been together at dinner time. They used to do it all the time, or at least they would order takeout in some form, so Patrick finds it comforting to do it again after so long. 

The pizza is good, and Pete offers to stay the night - there's an unspoken "to make sure you're safe" there - but Patrick politely declines, saying he needs a break. This logic doesn't quite make enough sense to qualify as logic, but Pete doesn't argue. 

Patrick goes to bed as soon as Pete leaves. He's completely tired out, and he can't wait to get some rest. 

His bedside drawer is open when he walks into his room. He must've left it like that earlier - he had put Joe's knife in there so he didn't have to look at it. This has backfired, since in leaving the drawer open, he's forced himself to look at it. 

It sits there, lit by moonlight streaming through his window. Patrick hasn't bothered to clean the blood off. Staring at the knife, he considers for a brief moment that maybe he should go see Joe, if not just to return the knife. That would be a good excuse, wouldn't it? _I'm not here for you, I just wanted to give your knife back._

No, it's not really a good excuse at all. Patrick slams the drawer shut with such force that his lamp almost falls over. 

He falls asleep battling an unstoppable feeling of dread. 

~*~

Patrick wakes up with a headache, and he pretends he didn't know it was coming just so he has reason to be pissed about it. He takes a couple Advil - despite previous experience telling him it won't do shit - and goes to work anyway. 

Andy asks him to shelve some new books that just came in, and he's happy for the distraction. He's also happy that Andy doesn't bring up anything about their conversation yesterday. 

Shelving books is boring and difficult, especially when he has to deal with Andy's strange way of organizing the shelves - by genre, then by topic, and only then in alphabetical order by author - but the mundane task keeps his mind off other things. He'd much rather wonder if the book in his hand counts as science fiction or fantasy or both than think about Joe. 

Patrick's headache predictably gets worse as the day goes on, but he blatantly ignores it. He tells himself he'll be fine, that it probably won't get _that_ bad. He also tells himself this is just going to be for a couple days while he figures his shit out. 

He knows neither of those things are true, but he still tells himself that they are. 

By the time he's off work, Patrick is sweating through his clothes, though he doesn't think he has a fever yet. (The fact that he so easily adds "yet" onto the end of that scares him a little bit.) It's probably mostly because he's wearing a sweater in sweltering heat, but in his defense, he'd rather burn up then show off his silver blood-crusted cut like he so idiotically had yesterday. 

Pete shows up to his house right on time. By that time, Patrick's headache is pounding and he thinks he _is_ starting to get a real fever, but other than that he's _fine_ , really. He doesn't need to go see Joe. He _doesn't_. 

Pete seems to notice something's up, but when he asks, Patrick tells him he's catching a cold. Pete doesn't yet know that Patrick isn't supposed to stay out of the water, and Patrick's not too keen on telling him about it, because if he does he knows Pete will become the over-protective friend and force him into the ocean, which, while he appreciates the sentiment in theory, he does not want in reality. 

As usual, he brings out Jenga - he and Pete do sometimes do other things than play Jenga, yes, but this is the activity that overtakes most of their time, what with Pete's insistence on frequent rematches. He stubbornly refuses to admit that Patrick is just better at Jenga than him. 

Again, Pete asks if Patrick wants to leave to go see Joe - and this time uses Joe's name, now that he knows that's who Patrick had been going to see, which gets a wince from Patrick that Pete doesn't seem to notice - and again, Patrick says no. He switches conversation back to Jenga as quickly as possible. 

By the evening, Patrick's hands have gotten shaky, and he's struggling with Jenga. Pete does seem to notice this, but he doesn't say anything. Patrick almost wishes he would. 

Patrick waves goodbye when Pete departs to go home that night, and as soon as the door shuts he goes and takes a couple Advil again - he'd been holding off in a misguided attempt to convince Pete it really wasn't that bad. Advil has still done nothing for him, but he supposes it can't hurt to keep trying occasionally. 

He falls asleep with a throbbing headache, a definite fever, mild shakes, and a feeling of regret that he forces down with all he's got. 

~*~

He wakes up with a slightly worse headache, a much worse fever, shakes that are no longer just mild, and regret that he can no longer just ignore. 

On top of that, his nose is running, and he's got a cough. He tells himself it could be worse, which doesn't help, since he knows it _will_ get worse. 

Regardless of how bad it's getting, he still shows up to work. How could he not?

Andy gets one look at him and says, "Go home, Patrick."

"I'm _fine_ ," Patrick responds, and promptly breaks into a coughing fit that makes his headache throb worse with each wracking cough. 

"You're sick." Andy crosses his arms. "I get that you don't like skipping work, but I'm your boss, and I'm telling you to go home. You're obviously too sick to work. I've never seen you get a cold this bad."

"It's not a cold," Patrick says before he can consider that maybe he shouldn't have said it. 

Andy's face changes entirely. "Patrick..." he says warningly. 

"I'm gonna be _fine_ ," Patrick insists indignantly, and, for the first time ever, turns around and leaves work. 

He goes home, which is a bit of a challenge with how lightheaded he's gotten, and collapses into bed before doing anything else. He's tired, but every time he tries to get to sleep, another coughing fit will keep him up. 

When Pete shows up, he finds Patrick curled up in fetal position on top of his sheets, coughing and looking downright miserable. 

"Fuck, Patrick, are you okay?" he asks the second he sees him. 

"'m good," Patrick mumbles, because he can't muster the energy to speak at full volume anymore. 

Pete crosses the room to him. "No you're not! You're sick!"

"It's fine," Patrick tells him insistently. 

"What do you need?" Pete asks, ignoring Patrick's weak arguments. "Can I get you some Advil? A glass of water? I don't know, I'm not good at this!"

"Advil," Patrick says, just to get Pete off his case. He knows what he really needs, but he is absolutely not giving in. 

"Okay, sure," Pete says, and goes off to find it. 

Patrick rolls over and groans. Pete is back before he knows it, and hands Patrick a glass of water along with his Advil. Pete has to hold Patrick up so he can drink from the glass, because he doesn't have the strength to sit up by himself. 

"Fuck, Patrick, I've never seen you this sick," Pete says, setting the empty glass aside. His concern is warranted; Patrick has always been one of those lucky people who never so much as gets a cough - at least, not under normal circumstances.

Patrick doesn't respond, just curls up a little tighter in bed. Pete takes this as a cue to keep talking. 

"Really, the only other time I've seen you actually get sick was-" Pete stops. Realization dawns on his face. "A couple weeks ago...when you were sick like this and then ran out on Jenga and came back fine the next day..."

Patrick groans. Great, now Pete's going to connect the dots. 

"This is the same thing," Pete declares with conviction. "Shit, Patrick, what did you do last time? What do you need?"

"I'm fine," Patrick says, refusing to actually answer Pete's questions. 

"Does this have something to do with...?" Pete starts, and even though he doesn't actually say what he thinks it has do with, Patrick knows what he was going to say, and knows he's right. 

"It's fine," Patrick mutters in lieu of a real response. 

"So it does." Pete crosses his arms, going from concerned to all business. "What do you _need_ , Patrick?"

"Nothing," Patrick lies. 

Pete is taking none of his shit. "I may have no clue about most of whatever the fuck you've gotten mixed up in, but I still want to help you. It's obvious this is only going to get worse. So for fuck's sake, Patrick let me help you. _What do you need_?"

Patrick locks eyes with Pete and finds nothing but worry. He sighs in defeat. "The ocean."

Pete seems to put two and two together pretty easily. "Shit, okay." Without warning, he scoops Patrick up into his arms. By way of explanation, he apologetically says, "I don't think I trust you to walk right now. I can carry you."

"No, Pete, you can't," Patrick complains. 

"Why not?" Pete challenges, frowning. "I know about that shit, Patrick, you don't have to hide it or anything."

"'s not that," Patrick mumbles. "I...you can't just dump me into the ocean. Beaches are too public. I'll..." He briefly considers that maybe he shouldn't direct Pete to Joe's cave, but fuck it, he really doesn't have a choice. Pete is going to force him to go into the sea either way, and he'd much rather do it somewhere where he won't be seen. He finishes, "I'll tell you where to go."

"Okay." Pete looks even more worried, but he says nothing more as he carries Patrick out through the front door and starts down the road from Patrick's house. 

"Keep going down the road for a little," Patrick says weakly. He's not sure if he's just tired, or if his vision is really starting to go a bit fuzzy. Under the circumstances, it really could be either one. 

Pete follows the direction, and picks up the pace a little. He can't go too fast with Patrick in his arms, but he's obviously trying to get Patrick to safety as quickly as he can anyways. 

"Hey," he says thoughtfully. "Is this why you kept going to see Joe?"

Patrick subconsciously winces at the mention of Joe's name. "Uh, turn left. Keep going for a little bit more. Um...yes."

"Huh," Pete says, nodding to himself. "Fuck, I need to apologize. I was upset about it because I thought you were ditching me. I didn't realize it was this serious."

Patrick finds it in himself to laugh at that. "Thanks, I guess? Okay, to the right here."

They've hit the beach, and Pete has to slow down as his feet start to sink into the sand with each step. He treads towards the dunes, and Patrick's stomach twists, mostly in apprehension, partially due to his sickness. 

"Okay, see that dune right in front of us?" he begins. His voice is getting so weak he's surprised he can even speak full sentences. "Push aside the ferns at the bottom. There's an opening."

Pete kneels down and does so with one arm, keeping Patrick held tightly with his other. He stares at the cavern's entrance in amazement. "How did I never know this was here?"

"Wait 'till you see inside," Patrick murmurs fondly, unable to stop himself from being proud of Joe's amazing collection, no matter how much he wants to stay mad at Joe. 

Pete shifts Patrick back into both arms and pushes himself down the small entry tunnel like it's a slide - which, to be fair, is the way Patrick usually goes in too. They land on the floor of the above-water section of the cavern, and Pete gasps in awe once he sees the colorfully decorated walls. (Patrick briefly recalls wondering previously how Joe had gotten all this stuff on the walls, and now that he knows Andy and Joe know each other, he thinks that it's probable that Andy helped.)

"Patrick!"

Patrick can't help the fact that his head snaps up at the sound of Joe's voice. Joe is leaning on the edge of the water, gaping at Patrick with concern written all over his face. It occurs to Patrick that Joe has probably been waiting for him. The thought makes him feel sick in a way that has nothing to do with lack of ocean. 

Patrick forces himself to look away, instead focusing on a pretty piece of green fabric that flaps off of one of the cavern's walls. 

"Is he okay?" Joe asks hurriedly, pushing himself further out of the water like he's trying to look, even though with Pete and Patrick currently on the floor it's doubtful he can't see them already. Patrick has been staring for a full ten seconds before he's realized he's looking again. 

"Not really..." Pete replies quietly, getting up to his feet and clutching Patrick tighter. 

"Fuck, get him in here!" Joe exclaims. He looks downright horrified. 

"Actually, on second thought, 'm okay," Patrick mutters, immediately breaking into a coughing fit that cements how not at all okay he really is. 

"No you aren't!" Joe says, brow creasing. He looks up to Pete. "Please, just throw him in, I don't care."

Pete nods and does just that. 

"Really, I'm good-" Patrick starts, but he's cut off as he hits the surface of the water. He sinks under fast, and squeezes his eyes shut as the pain sinks in and subsequently disappears, taking his sickness with it. 

"Patrick!" Joe has Patrick in his arms before Patrick can fully adjust to feeling alright again. 

Patrick worms his way out of Joe's arms, frowning. "I'm fine, okay? Get off me."

Joe's face falls. "Are you okay?"

"Well, I'm fine now, but I thought you didn't want me here," Patrick spits out. His brain joins the party a little too late to remind him that it really seems like Joe does want him here, and badly. 

Joe shakes his head wildly, aghast. "No, I told you, that's not what I meant! I just wanted you to be careful, I didn't want anything to happen to you, and fuck - fuck, you looked so _sick_ up there...that's not what I wanted! That was the opposite of what I wanted!"

Patrick's gaze falls to the floor. He's an idiot. He's a fucking idiot! How has he never learned from his mistakes? Of course Joe wanted him to come back, of course all he meant was they should be careful so Patrick didn't get fucking _killed_. And what did he do? He almost got himself killed anyway. 

"I'm sorry," he mutters shamefully, keeping his eyes trained on the ground. He sees a little crab moving by, so he watches that to keep himself distracted. 

"Don't apologize. It's alright." Joe pulls Patrick into his arms again, and this time Patrick doesn't protest. He buries his face in Joe's neck and thanks whatever gods may exist that Joe seems to forgive even the most idiotic of his mistakes with little to no hesitation. 

"I won't do that again. I promise," Patrick says quietly. 

"Good. Because I don't know what I would do if I lost you." Joe is squeezing Patrick so tightly Patrick thinks he's going to suffocate. 

He reluctantly pulls himself out of Joe's embrace, and says, "Hopefully you don't have to find out."

Joe sighs. "Uh...really, don't take this personally, but I wasn't kidding when I said you shouldn't stay too long. Just for a couple weeks, until they're off your trail...I don't know how easily they could find you, and-"

"I get it." Patrick nods, giving Joe a soft smile. 

Joe nods back, relieved. "Okay. Good."

Patrick flicks his tail and shoots up to the surface, with Joe following close behind. When he breaks the water, Pete is sitting right by the edge, waiting. 

"Are you okay now?" Pete asks worriedly. 

"Yeah. I'm good." Patrick smiles warmly at him. "Thanks for forcing me to get my shit together."

"That's what friends do," Pete jokes, grinning back. 

"I should thank you too," Joe pipes up from Patrick's right. 

"Nah, don't worry," Pete responds, laughing. "You saved my best friend's life. I owe you one. Or more."

No one says anything else, so Patrick pulls himself out of the water. He catches Pete staring at his tail in wonder. 

"What're you looking at, Wentz?" he says jokingly. 

Pete startles. "Uh, I. It's just-"

"I know," Patrick interrupts. "It is." He thinks for a second and adds, pointing to the pair of shorts hanging back on the wall that he'd borrowed before, "Would you grab me those?" He turns to Joe and apologizes, "I hope it's okay if I borrow them again, getting out here was kind of rushed and I didn't-"

"Of course you can," Joe replies without a second thought. 

Patrick nods, and Pete hurries to pull the shorts down for him. He tosses them over just in time. 

"Look away," Patrick tells him, and Pete makes a face, but listens anyway. 

Patrick pulls the shorts onto his newly returned legs and pulls himself up shakily. "Fuck, I'm never gonna get used to this." 

"Hey, Patrick, can I talk to you real quick?" Joe asks, which makes Patrick's stomach sink, remembering how bad things had turned last time Joe had asked that question. 

"Yeah." Patrick walks the couple steps over to Joe, shakily, as he's still not completely balanced on his legs. He kneels down. "What is it?"

Joe pulls him in and kisses him briefly - thankfully, his hands and face are already dry, because Patrick doesn't exactly feel like falling to the ground with a tail again right now. Joe pulls back and whispers, "We keep doing this."

"Huh?" Patrick blinks. 

"We keep having these moments where I feel like everything is great and then immediately after it all goes to hell again." Joe cocks his head to the side. His lips pull down in just the slightest frown. 

Patrick shakes his head. "Not this time. I know I can't really say that for sure, but I'll say it anyway. Not this time."

"I hope so," Joe murmurs.

"Me too," Patrick agrees quietly. "But so much has already happened..." He sighs. "At this point, what else could really go wrong?"

~*~

The next day at work, Andy picks up pretty quickly that Patrick's feeling a lot better. He doesn't comment on it, except for saying, "You're in a good mood."

"Sure," Patrick says, because he is. He's convinced himself that if he's careful, he'll be alright, and things are good with Joe again. Everything is looking up, in a weird sort of way. 

Work seems to go by in a rush of washing dishes and serving the small trickle of customers, just like most days. But this time, Patrick is excited for going to see Joe, with their friendship (uh...relationship?) newly mended. (Of course, it wasn't really ever broken in the first place, Patrick was just an idiot. As usual.)

He practically fucking skips home and finds a book to read while he waits for Pete to come over. He's already read it, but he remembers it being one of his favorites, so he's sure it'll keep him busy for the hour before Pete shows up. 

The hour passes. Pete doesn't show. 

Of course, Pete isn't always the most punctual person. He's been as much as thirty minutes late before, and Patrick has learned not to get too worried. But this time - it just doesn't feel right. 

It's another hour before he decides something is really wrong. He supposes Pete could be sick, or maybe something came up, but he would've texted, wouldn't he?

Patrick texts Pete, a quick _is everything okay?_ , but he doesn't get a response. The worry grows. 

By this time, it's almost time for him to go visit Joe anyway, so he nervously leaves the house, leaving a note for Pete on the door in case he's just showing up really, really late. With no warning. And no reason. 

Something tells him that's not the case. He ignores it. 

He treks solemnly to Joe's cave, fear of what could have happened to Pete overriding his previous excitement about seeing Joe. He slides down into the cavern and is met with Joe sitting on the edge of the pool, already waiting for him. 

Joe never waits for him above the water. He had yesterday, but that was an exception because Patrick hadn't been down in days. This time, the unknown reason for Joe waiting up here fills him with worry. 

Joe looks afraid, and Patrick's stomach sinks further. He crosses the cave in three quick steps. 

"Fuck, Joe, what's wrong?" Patrick asks, kneeling down next to Joe. 

Joe stares at him with wide eyes and breathes out three words that twist Patrick's stomach worse than when he'd been sick. 

"They've got Pete."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is probably gonna be kinda short and mostly filler sorry guys. but woooooo cliffhanger


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took so long to update! Hit some writer's block. 
> 
> Fairly short chapter here. At least, compared to the rest of em it is. It's about to get BAD. There's only one or two more chapters, though. So thanks for sticking with me on this wild ride. 
> 
> Enjoy!

" _What_?"

Patrick screams the word so loudly that it echoes off the walls of the cavern, reverberating through his body and shaking it like a ringing gong. This can't be right. This can't be possible. 

" _They've got Pete_ ," Joe repeats weakly. His eyes remain wide and fearful. Patrick can't process all this at once. 

"How?" he spits out, then continues asking questions, one after another, asking each one the second it occurs to him. "How do you know? How could this happen? Where is he? What did they do to him? Why would they take him? Why-"

"Patrick. Calm down." Joe is shaking now, and it occurs to Patrick that his barrage of questions probably isn't helpful. "I don't know where he is, or how they got him. I only know because one of them came here to threaten me. I wouldn't worry about them doing anything to him. But...they took him because of you."

Patrick's throat tightens. "He's a ransom."

Joe nods weakly. "Yeah."

Then Patrick processes the rest of what Joe said and he blurts out, "Oh my god, they came _here_? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

Joe laughs, but it's strained and weak. "I'm fine. They couldn't hurt me, even if they wanted to."

Patrick frowns, confused. "Why not?"

"Because despite being a gang built on the sole purpose of genocide, they like to think they actually have some form of morals." Joe shakes his head, his voice heavy with distaste. "They have strong rules against hurting merpeople. And humans, for that matter, which is why I wouldn't be worried about them hurting Pete. They can't. It's against their bullshit code."

"Oh, thank fuck," Patrick breathes out, relief filling him briefly, before dissipating when reality crashes down again. "So they're just going to hold him until...until what, I give myself up? How can I even do that if they didn't even say where they have him?"

"They gave a time and place for an exchange," Joe mutters hopelessly. "Tomorrow night. Under the dock I saved you on."

"Fuckers," Patrick hisses, gritting his teeth. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Probably not." Joe shakes his head, sighing bitterly. "They can't hurt him, but that doesn't mean he's entirely safe."

"Fuck, okay." Patrick sighs, feeling helpless in this situation that he was never prepared to handle. "I don't know what to do."

Joe gives him a sad look. "I think you don't really have a choice. We can show up and try and fight them off - that's our best bet. Since they're not allowed to hurt me or Pete, we'd sort of have an advantage."

Patrick grimaces. That idea doesn't sound appealing to him in the least. "That's really what it's come to?"

"Yeah." Joe looks down to the ground. "And...you should probably get out of here as quickly as possible. They probably know you come here, staying a while wouldn't be safe. Just...I don't know, just dip your foot in, the change alone should be enough to keep you from getting sick."

"Y - yeah. Okay," Patrick stammers out, reaching out a reluctant foot and dipping it into the water as Joe had suggested. He instinctually closes his eyes as the brief pain comes and goes. When he opens them again, his tail is back. 

"I'm never getting used to this," he mumbles with a sigh, already reaching over to grab the extra pair of jeans he'd brought with him, knowing he's going to dry off extremely quickly. 

"I'm sorry," Joe mutters, looking away. 

"Don't be," Patrick says as, even faster than he would have expected, his legs come back with the usual slight pain. He pulls the jeans on and adds, "Really, I'd much rather have this than have drowned. I promise."

"Sure," Joe says quietly, sighing. 

Patrick scoots over to Joe and pulls him into a tight hug. "Seriously. This is...this is weird, and a bit uncomfortable at times, but it's much better than being dead."

Joe relaxes into his embrace. "Okay..."

"And I never got to say," Patrick begins, leaning back a little. "I love you too."

He leans in and kisses Joe, who is surprised, but calms down quickly. 

Patrick pulls back. "I'll...see you tomorrow?" He winces. He doesn't want to see Joe tomorrow under the circumstances he knows it's going to be under, but they have to. It's for Pete. He'd do anything for Pete. 

"Okay," Joe murmurs softly, nodding. 

Patrick straightens up, legs just now starting to feel normal again, and gives Joe the best smile he can muster with Pete's kidnapping hanging over them before turning and leaving the cave.

~*~

Patrick is antsy at work the next day, but he doesn't plan on telling Andy why. However, this plan kind of fails, since the second Andy asks, "What's wrong?", Patrick blurts out, "In a hypothetical situation where a hypothetical anti-silverblood gang kidnapped my hypothetical best friend and are holding him as a hypothetical ransom so they can make me turn myself over so they can kill me...hypothetically...what would I do?"

Andy's eyes widen. "They have _Pete_?"

Patrick's eyes fall solemnly to the worn wood of the counter, which he was busy wiping down before Andy came to talk to him. "Yeah..."

"That's...not good." Andy frowns. 

"No fucking shit," Patrick mutters, groaning. 

"Well, he should be okay, since-" Andy starts, but Patrick cuts him off. 

"They can't hurt humans because of their dumb moral code, I know." He sighs heavily. "Joe already told me. Doesn't make me feel any better."

Andy gives him a sympathetic look, even though there's no way he could really be sympathetic of this situation. "My best advice is to go with it, and make sure that above all costs, you don't get hurt. They can't hurt Pete, so don't worry too much about protecting him - worry about yourself. You need to start doing more of that anyways."

"Thanks, Andy," Patrick mutters, shaking his head and returning to wiping the counter. If anything, he can always trust Andy to be the voice of reason, even in the most entirely unreasonable situations. 

Andy nods with finality and walks off to return to his back room, where he's been doing who-knows-what for most of Patrick's shift. Patrick honestly doesn't want to know. 

When he gets off work, he's shaking nervously the whole walk home. It feels strangely cold for a summer afternoon in a beach town, and Patrick shivers with anticipation. It feels like an omen. He's so fucking afraid. He doesn't know if he'll make it out of this alive - hell, even with multiple people telling him they can't hurt Pete, he can't ignore his gut feeling telling him they're going to. He is utterly, hopelessly afraid. 

He's decided to go to Joe's cave and meet him at the usual time. They're going to leave from there and meet Pete's captors under the dock that night. Patrick isn't sure what to expect, so he anxiously paces his living room floor and tries to formulate some sort of plan. 

He thinks it's a good idea to bring some sort of weaponry, so he packs a small bag with Joe's knife, still in his drawer, a big metal kitchen knife (just to be safe), and, cliche of all cliches, a baseball bat. The bag of defenses doesn't make him feel any more safe, though. In fact, he just keeps feeling more and more unsafe. He can't shake the feeling that something is going to happen - something terrible. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like any of this. 

Which is why he jumps straight out of the chair he's settled into when he hears a hard knock on the door. At first he's terrified that it's the gang, come to kill him even though he hasn't gone to get Pete yet, but then he hears a familiar voice yelling, "Patrick! Open the hell up!"

Patrick's eyes go wide. It's not possible. But-

He rushes to the door, dropping his bag of weapons that now seem useless, and pulls it open faster than he thinks he ever has before. 

Pete is standing in the doorway, looking weak and - and _fragile_ , but with the exception of a bruise blossoming on the side of his face he isn't hurt at all. Patrick chokes on his own breath, and before he can even think he has Pete pulled into his arms. 

"Oh my god!" he chokes out, the beginning of relieved tears pricking at his eyes. "You're okay!"

At first, Pete is tense, but then he relaxes and lets Patrick squeeze him nearly to death. 

"They were trying to kill me," Pete breathes out, voice wavering in fear. "Fuck, 'Trick, they were going to _kill me_."

Patrick shakes his head and holds Pete tighter, rushing out in the most reassuring tone he can manage, "No, no, don't worry. They were probably just trying to scare you. They weren't. They couldn't. Joe told me about their weird moral code. They can't hurt humans."

Pete stiffens again in Patrick's arms and whispers, "But they were."

"No, they couldn't have. I promise," Patrick murmurs. Pete doesn't relax this time, but he doesn't say anything else either, so Patrick takes it as a cue to keep talking. 

"How?" he asks, stepping back to look Pete over again. "I thought they - I thought they had you for good! How did you get away?"

Pete grimaces. "It wasn't pretty. I..." he pauses, looking considerate, like he's trying to remember what happened, though Patrick doesn't know how he could not know his own story, "...I managed to fight them off, somehow, I guess I..." Pete gives a cryptic, pained smile. "I guess I had the element of surprise? They weren't expecting a fight."

"Fuck, Pete, are you alright?" Patrick asks, gripping him by the shoulders and looking him over once again, but still failing to notice anything wrong but for the dark bruise on his face. 

"I'm as alright as I'll ever be," Pete responds with a pained sigh. 

Patrick pulls his friend into his arms again, muttering, "God, Pete, I'm so sorry, this is all my fault, they wouldn't have come after you if it wasn't for me."

Pete shakes his head. "No, Patrick, it's not. None of this is your fault. I was the idiot who tried to go home with a stranger I met at a bar." He laughs humorlessly. "Didn't realize I made a mistake until she hit me over the head with a crowbar and dragged me away."

"Oh, fucking hell," Patrick breathes out, the story only making him want to hold Pete tighter. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah," Pete says, though judging by his voice he isn't at all. "I'm doing fucking great right now."

~*~

Patrick's urge to see Joe is renewed by the discovery that Pete is okay, so he drags Pete along with him to the cavern, even as Pete protests against it. 

"I really don't need to come," he insists, trying to get out of Patrick's grip. 

"Yeah you do," Patrick says. "I need to prove to Joe that you're actually okay or he's going to think I'm just trying to get him out of trouble."

"He'd only think that if you would," Pete points out, giving up on escaping. 

"Yeah. And I would," Patrick says quietly, slowing down as they reach the cavern. 

He slides into the entrance first, and Pete follows a moment behind. Joe is already waiting when Patrick shows up. 

He looks anxious, but it clears the second he sees Pete. "Wait, he's okay?" he asks, disbelieving. 

Pete laughs, his uncomfortable mood from earlier gone completely. "I'm great, thanks."

"He got out!" Patrick explains jubilantly, beaming at Joe, who cautiously breaks into a smile of his own. 

"Oh fuck, that's great!" he says, nodding to Pete. "That's...wow, I never thought someone could escape them. They're fucking ruthless when it comes to holding prisoners."

Pete cringes, the uncomfortable look back, but it's gone again so fast that Patrick wonders if he'd imagined it. "Well, guess I was lucky."

Joe nods slowly, his eyes narrowing in a vaguely suspicious look. "Uh huh. You sure were." He turns to Patrick and asks, "Patrick, can we talk?"

Patrick frowns. "Uh, sure?"

He starts to walk forward, kneeling down for a bit of "privacy" - at least as much as they can get in such a small cave - and Joe shakes his head, pointing down to the water. 

Patrick raises an eyebrow, puzzled. "I thought you said it probably isn't safe for me to hang out in the water like that."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Joe says, even though his face betrays that he doesn't really think that at all. 

Patrick gets the feeling it's in his best interest to agree. 

"Okay," he says, stepping back a little for a sort of head start, then sprinting the rest of the way to the edge of the pool and throwing himself into the water. 

As always, he waits until he feels his tail return before he even opens his eyes. When he does, Joe is right in front of him, looking frantic. 

"Something is wrong here," he blurts out, eyes wide and scared. "There's no way he just _escaped_. Not from those guys."

Patrick furrows his brow. "What are you trying to say? He just got lucky. What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that is you don't _get_ lucky with those fuckers," Joe grits out grimly. "They don't let you go unless something _really_ unexpected comes up, or unless _they want you to_."

"So maybe something unexpected came up," Patrick says, but he believes it less and less as he thinks about it. It does seem a little bit weird that Pete had shown up so conveniently...

"Or maybe they're using him as a spy," Joe suggests grimly, his face somber. 

Patrick makes a strangled noise. "He _wouldn't_!"

"Or maybe he would." Joe shrugs, wincing at the sharp tone of Patrick's voice. "You don't _know_."

"But I do," Patrick says faintly. "I do."

"I'm just saying, maybe you should be careful," Joe says, looking like he's trying futilely to salvage this conversation. "Patrick, I'm worried. I don't want something to happen to you. I just - I just want you to be cautious."

"Fuck you," Patrick mutters, backing away with a quick flick of his tail. " _Fuck you_."

Joe's face shifts from worry to hurt, but Patrick forces himself not to care. "Patrick, I-"

Patrick turns away and swims for the side of the cavern, ready to leave. Before he gets out, he turns around one last time and hisses out, "I know my best friend, Joe. It kind of hurts that you think I don't."

With that, he pulls himself over the edge and out of the pool, landing on the rocky floor of the upper cave. 

He groans and turns to see Pete looking at him with concern in his eyes. Yeah, spy, his ass. Joe can go fuck himself, for all Patrick cares. Well, okay, Patrick doesn't really mean that, but he's mad. He says and thinks a lot of overblown things when he's mad. 

"Get me my fucking jeans, would you?" Patrick asks, forcing himself up on one elbow. Pete obliges, tossing them over. Patrick catches them and nods his thanks. 

"Is everything okay?" Pete asks, voice and expression riddled with worry. 

"Yeah," Patrick mutters bitterly, casting a glare to the water's surface. "Everything is just _great_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kell I fucking know you know The Truth don't u fucking dare spoil I'm watching you

**Author's Note:**

> remember you can always send me shit on my tumblr: vicesandvelociraptors :)
> 
> and please comment!!


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